Free Spirit
by i AM the Random Idiot
Summary: 24 year old Danny thinks he’s ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self doubt. But a long forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won’t be a free spirit for long.... Odyssey of the Spirit: Part One
1. Ghost Town

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Wow, whaddaya know? Not only is this my first DP fic, it's my first non-humor fic as well. How skilled am I? You can tell me in your reviews (I fully expect many variants of _not very_). I've never written angst before, so any tips would have me eternally in your debt.

Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE! (Butch turns up) _Whoops_, did I say _mine_? I mean _yours_! All yours...I'll just hide somewhere now...

**Chapter 1:** **Ghost Town**

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me_

_My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating_

_Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me_

_Till then, I walk alone_ --Green Day, _Boulevard of Broken Dreams_

XxXxX

There is a town in North America whose name can make any small, impressionable child whimper, many adults shudder, and many a skeptic scoff. Some say it is bad luck. Some say it is cursed.

Some say it is haunted.

The town is called Amity Park. Beneath the hollowed-out facades of long-abandoned buildings, strange presences often make themselves known. Mysterious disappearances, unexplained screams when no one is around, and other inexplicable yet eerie events are commonplace here. Any people with sense and money had left years ago; some with sense but no money still inhabited the broken-down facsimiles of homes that line the cold and empty streets. The few surviving people with neither sense nor money continue to foolishly walk the streets at night. There aren't many of them left.

You don't go into the streets at night in Amity Park.

Try telling that to the man standing at the town's gates.

He didn't look like the usual array of idiots, drug addicts, prostitutes, and other dregs that inhabited the night alleys of Amity Park. Though his ice-blue eyes glanced from side to side, sizing up the shadows and what might occupy them, they didn't hold that dull, burned-out look common to the hopeless street scum that roamed the avenues at this late hour. His large black combat boots and camouflage pants put one in mind of a military veteran, but the only war he'd ever fought was that war that all city-dwellers fight: survival. His once-white shirt and worn leather jacket seemed poor insulation against the cold that permeated the air.

However, even Amity Park isn't chilly enough in mid-September to make one's breath visible. Regardless, every so often, the man would exhale a fine bluish mist that only served to accentuate the slight chill to anyone watching.

A slight breeze wafted down Main Street as he stepped from the highway into the city proper, rustling his raven-black hair as it passed. His breath still fanning out before him, he continued down the street, never breaking stride, as if he could walk the same route with his eyes closed.

It should come as no surprise to learn he was born and raised in Amity Park.

He stopped once, examining the wreckage of what was once a fast-food restaurant. He nudged the debris with the toe of his boot before shaking his head—almost _knowingly_—and walking on.

The second time he stopped, a grown woman, seeming to be about his age, stumbled out of an alleyway. When he first heard a rustle from her direction, he whipped his head around and his eyes seemed to shift from ice-blue to neon-green. It must have been a trick of the guttering streetlamps, though, for they were normal when she approached him.

"Looking for a good time?" she purred in a Hispanic accent, sizing him up with a hungry gleam in her cerulean-gray eyes. She gasped when they locked eyes. "_Mi Dios_... ...Fenton?" But he had already quickened his pace down the street, ignoring her.

If he knew where he was going, he gave no sign, but continued to stride purposefully forward. Finally, he stopped and gazed up at the shabby brick-and-steel façade of the only building in town not falling down or being used as a bomb shelter. Known to the city's inhabitants as "the Fenton place", the house actually served as a home to a family and not a mishmash of people eager only to scrounge up enough money to pay for bus fare (not that the buses visited Amity Park anymore).

When he rang the doorbell (which promptly popped out of its holding, trailing wires and sparking), Jack Fenton answered the door in fuzzy blue slippers and his trademark Day-Glo orange jumpsuit, holding a bat with a faded "Fenton Anti-Creep Stick" label on it and a large ectogun in the other.

"It's three in the morning, we're not buying, and if you're inhabited by a ghost, get off my front porch or eat hot Fenton Bazooka," Jack growled, still half-asleep.

The man just pushed raven-black wisps of hair out of his eyes, and said, "Nice to see you too, Dad."

Jack rubbed his eyes, peered at him, and gasped, "Danny? ...Is that _you_?" Danny nodded. Jack backed a few steps into the house, still regarding him warily. "Maddie!" he called.

They waited a few minutes for Maddie Fenton to join them. Jack kept a suspicious eye on Danny, not quite sure whether it truly was Danny or a really clever ghost faking. Danny just stood there, hands in his pockets, hair rustling in the slight breeze, every now and then exhaling a light vapor.

Maddie finally appeared in the doorway, holding the Fenton Weasel and looking very peeved through her orange goggles. "Jack, what is going on at three in the morning that requires my presence?" she snapped.

Jack pointed. "Honey, he says he's Danny," he explained, still uneasy.

"Jack, don't be ridicu--...Danny?" Maddie scrutinized him. "You're Danny," she said, more of a disbelieving statement than a question.

Danny nodded again. Maddie aimed the Fenton Weasel. "Okay, if you're our son, you must answer some questions or be torn apart molecule by molecule. Got it?"

Danny said, "Well, can I come in? It's cold out here." As if to punctuate this statement, his breath crystallized in the air again, only this time more visibly.

"Well..." Maddie looked at Jack, who shrugged. She turned back and said, "Okay, but you'll have to go through the ghost shield." As she said this, she moved her hand out of Danny's line of vision and pressed an unseen button. A glowing greenish translucent dome appeared over the house. Danny walked in right through it, throwing a wary glance over his shoulder as he did so. Maddie stuck her head out the door and muttered, "It isn't _that_ cold out here..."

Danny turned to look at her, noting the Fenton Weasel still trained on him. "Doesn't going through the shield prove I'm not a ghost?" he asked.

"Just sit and answer," Maddie snapped.

Danny complied, keeping his hands spread wide face-down on the table before him. He seemed to be familiar with the routine.

"First question," Maddie snarled. "Where is the Emergency Ops Center Release button located?"

"Right next to the Emergency Ham, which has been spoiled for about ten years if it's still in there," Danny wearily responded. Maddie glared at Jack, who winced.

"I _told_ you to throw that out...Okay, next question." Maddie glanced around, looking for inspiration, and said, "What is the secret ingredient in my Caramel Specter-Doodle Cookies that won me Best Cookie in the Amity Park Baking Contest?"

Danny raised an eyebrow, and said, "Ectoplasm."

Maddie looked shocked that he answered correctly. Jack looked horrified. "It is?" he asked. Maddie pointedly ignored the question. Jack added, "You know, Maddie, it could actually be Danny..."

"Our _son_, Jack, ran away when he was sixteen, and if _that_—" She flung an accusing finger at the man seated calmly at the table, "—is him, then he has a _lot of explaining to do!_ Your final question," she snapped at Danny. "What prestigious science award is our daughter Jazz currently nominated for?"

Danny lowered his head to stare at his hands, which had begun to tremble violently. Then, barely above a whisper, he said, "Jazz died eight years ago in a tragic ghost-related accident."

Maddie dumped the Fenton Weasel, rushed over to the other side of the table, and buried Danny in a bone-crushing hug. "Oh, God, Danny," she sobbed, "...eight years, and you never called...not once..."

"I _told_ you it was Danny," Jack grumbled.

Maddie finally released him, wiped her eyes, and whispered, "Why, Danny? Why did you run away? We all thought you had killed yourself until we saw that you'd taken Jazz's car and half the working inventions from the lab. Your friends refused to tell us anything, but now we want the truth. Why?"

Danny shifted in his seat, avoiding her eyes. "After Jazz died, I guess I felt...somewhat responsible. So...I just needed to get away—_be_ somebody on my own...I didn't want to hurt you. I just needed to, you know, figure some things out."

"Felt _responsible?_ Danny, unless you were the ghost who knocked six tons of concrete and steel onto Jazz's head, I doubt you have anything to feel _responsible_ for!"

Danny just stared down at the tabletop without saying a word. Maddie hugged him again and whispered, "We missed you so much, hon."

Jack said, "Yeah! Now you can help us fight ghosts! Ever since you left, this town has been absolutely _riddled_ with them. Except that ghost kid," he added. "Strangely enough, we haven't seen him since you've been gone."

"Yeah, that _is_ strange," Maddie agreed.

Danny seemed to be getting jittery, so Maddie and Jack pulled out a blanket and let him sleep on the living room couch. As he sat down, Maddie hugged him and whispered, "Welcome home."

Danny looked out the window to see a homeless Asian guy in an old letter-jacket being chased by a large ghost panther. He remembered the desperate look on the face of the woman who'd stopped him in the street. He thought about how his normally amicable parents had hardened into people who threatened strangers at gunpoint.

"Home, sweet, home," he muttered darkly, and fell asleep.


	2. The Voice Inside

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: To all my wonderful, awesome reviewers—thank you! I had a whole bunch of nice shout-outs planned, but now they're illegal. Meh...

Disclaimer: Yeah, Butch rules the world, whatever...

**Chapter 2:** **The Voice Inside**

_I cannot find a way to describe it_

_It's there inside_

_All I do is hide_

_I wish that it would go away_ –Avril Lavigne, _Take Me Away_

XxXxX

A faint glow along the horizon announcing the impending arrival of dawn had barely begun when Danny's eyes snapped open. During his years of living on his own, he had learned to get by on three or four hours of sleep per night.

He sat up and passed a hand down his cheek, over the unshaven stubble along his jawline. Deciding it wasn't worth getting cold water on his face, he stood up and trudged into the kitchen.

After haphazardly stuffing some slices of bread into the Fenton Toaster, Danny sat at the table and stared at his reflection on its side. If his ice-blue eyes were only one shade lighter, he would have looked insanely creepy, but as it was, they just made him look intense. And almost creepy. His face was drawn, his cheeks slightly hollow, and the mass of stubble lining those cheeks was just long enough to be termed a beard. His entire face was framed by a mane of unkempt midnight-black hair. He looked like a former soldier, one who'd seen enough death and horror to last him several lifetimes, which he had. It troubled him. He hadn't looked at his reflection for so long that he wasn't used to his own wild appearance.

Danny put both elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands, a position he had taken up on many a cold and lonely night. Letting out a sigh, he rubbed his temples with his fingers, as if to ward off unpleasant memories.

His toast popped up, charred black and smeared with ectoplasm. Danny took a glance and decided he wasn't hungry. Getting up, he made up his mind to check out the rest of the house.

Danny crept up the stairs silently, not wanting to wake his parents. He put his ear to their bedroom door and was reassured by the sound of Jack's thunderous snores. He then slipped into the next room over.

Closing the door behind him, Danny turned to find...his old room. _Well_, he thought ironically, _it's much cleaner than when I left it..._ Danny picked up a picture frame from his desk. It was an old photo of him, Sam, and Tucker, smiling with their arms on each others' shoulders. A fresh wave of guilt hit him as he realized how long it had been since he'd spoken with either of them.

**You could have called once in a while,** came a familiar voice. It always seemed to come from the corner of his mind he associated with his ghost self, the persona he'd renounced after Jazz's death. Danny gritted his teeth. Lousy conscience. **They'd have liked to know you were alive, at least,** it continued.

_No, they wouldn't_, Danny thought back. _I'm the one who messed up their lives. I was the one who left. They were better off without me._

**You're an idiot if you've convinced yourself that's true,** the voice countered. Danny mentally frowned. He'd always thought of his ghost self as an extension of himself, like an arm or a leg. For the past few years since he'd stopped using his powers, though, they'd begun to gradually feel more distant, more alien than natural. His "conscience" seemed less and less like a part of him, and more and more like...something else. Or, more accurately, someone else. Danny felt like he was even becoming a stranger to himself.

Troubled, he put the picture down and sat down on the bed. He set down the worn, threadbare, battered backpack he constantly carried.

"Might as well get used to a long stay," he muttered, trying to convince himself of the fact. Rummaging around in his pack, he came up with a black leather-bound book—his personal journal. He flipped it open to a blank page, pulled out a pencil, and wrote, **September 18. **_Arrived home early this morning. Town overrun by ghosts. Think I saw Kwan and Paulina. Guess Spectra was right about Kwan's future. As for Paulina—let's just say I'm not surprised. _Danny paused, then added, _Parents as crazy as ever. No sign of Sam or Tuck. Good. It's too miserable here even for Sam._

He laid the journal next to the picture frame, then lay on the bed and sighed. _I can't tell them_, he internally moaned.

**You promised,** the voice accused.

_So? This obviously counts as a mitigating circumstance. They still blame "Inviso-Bill" for what happened to Jazz, and who could blame them? It was my fault. My stupid fault._

**You promised her you'd tell them. What if you just went and broke every other promise you ever made her? Your promise not to turn evil, for one thing.**

_That's different._

**I see no difference.**

Giving up, Danny looked back out of the window at the slowly pinkening sky. He decided he'd have time for angst at a more decent hour in the morning, and went back to sleep.

XxXxX

Contrary to what Danny believed, his parents were _not_ asleep. Jack always left a recording of his snores running in their room out of sheer paranoia. They had been down in the lab experimenting on a new weapon prototype, and had emerged just in time to see Danny disappear up the stairs. They figured it would be best to leave him alone for now, and waited until he went into his room to come into the kitchen.

Maddie looked at Jack and sighed. "Jack, it's been eight years. We lost both our daughter and son that day. Now we have Danny back. We should be happy."

"I _am_ happy!" Jack protested. "Danny's back, and more importantly, he can help us hunt ghosts! I swore a solemn vow that terrible day that I would not rest until I find that ghost kid and rip his molecules out of phase, and by golly, I'm gonna—"

"Jack, don't you find it a little too...coincidental that the ghost kid hasn't been seen or heard from since the accident?"

"Maddie, don't call it 'the accident', the ghost kid _killed_ her, and you know it! Otherwise, Jazz would be here to accept the Ghosthunters' Society award for Groundbreaking Research in Spectral Psychology _in person_, not posthumously," Jack argued.

Maddie sighed again. "All I'm saying, Jack, is not to expect Danny to hold your grudge for you. He's grown up now, and has his own life to lead. By running away, he dealt with Jazz's death his own way, not yours.

"And about the ghost kid," she added. "Ever since Jazz's death, he hasn't been seen. Don't you think that might have something to do with the increase in ghost attacks over the past eight years?"

"Sure—he hides in the Ghost Zone and sends his buddies to do his dirty work for him. Why, what are you suggesting?"

"Urgh...never mind..." Maddie muttered. They'd been having these types of conversations on and off recently. Maddie was starting to think that it might be time to let it go where the ghost boy was concerned. Jack, however, clung to his vendetta like a child to a security blanket.

Luckily, they were saved from continuing the discussion by the convenient diversion of the Fenton Toaster exploding. Fixing it kept them happily occupied for the next couple of hours.

XxXxX

At 9:27 am, Danny trudged into the Fenton family kitchen for the third time that morning. This time, his parents were there to greet him (without ecto-guns).

"Morning, Danny. Sleep okay?" Maddie asked as he opened the refrigerator.

"Fine," he muttered, examining some faintly glowing, vaguely evil-looking objects that may or may not, in a former life, have been eggs. "I heard a crash, but—"

"—just the Fenton Toaster," Jack cut in to reassure him. "I fixed it up, but now it won't toast rye bread. Think I connected some circuits wrong..."

Danny rooted around in the fridge some more, gave up, and settled on a bowl of Ecto-Os ("_It turns the milk GREEN!_"), sat down and started wolfing it down. It was a natural, habitual thing he had become accustomed to while living on the streets for a few years: eat it fast or lose it. However, this wasn't normal behavior in the Fenton household. Maddie and Jack stared at him.

Danny, noticing their quizzical looks, paused, glanced at his spoon (and the fact that three-quarters of the bowl was gone), and put it down. He seemed to realize just how much had changed in eight years—how much _he_ had changed. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore.

An awkward silence descended.

"So," Jack finally said to break the quiet, "want to see the lab?"

"Oh, yes, we've really made a lot of breakthroughs while you were gone," Maddie piped in.

"Uh, sure," Danny agreed, more to have something to do than any real desire to see. He got up.

"Well, we finally managed to capture a ghost a few years ago," Jack explained as they came down the stairs into the lab, "and the data we have collected since then has increased our knowledge of how ghosts work tenfold. Careful observation of our subject has helped us to understand much more than we did. For instance, you know how people gain experience through age?"

"Yeah..." Danny was becoming intrigued in spite of himself. Besides the basics of how his powers worked, where everything in the Ghost Zone was located, and how to defeat his enemies, he had never really bothered to learn a lot about ghosts. Granted, it didn't help that his parents barely knew anything about ghosts either, but...

"Well, with ghosts, that isn't exactly the case," Maddie picked up from where Jack left off. "As ghosts gain more experience and become more powerful, their forms mature with them. In other words, they gain age through experience. Isn't that fascinating?"

"Really?" Danny asked, his curiosity now fully piqued. "How did you—"

"See for yourself," Maddie said gesturing around the lab. Danny looked around. His parents certainly had been keeping themselves amused for the past eight years. The walls seemed papered with complex notes and diagrams—he even thought he saw a map of the Ghost Zone, though it was not as detailed as the one he had made with his friends. All the tables were littered with bubbling ectoplasm samples or mysterious half-assembled objects of unknown nature. Boxes of parts and tools were stacked everywhere.

"Wow, you guys kept busy," Danny said. "Dad, did you say something about—"

"Oh, yeah," Jack said offhandedly, though Danny could tell he had been bursting to say this, "we caught a ghost! Did he put up quite a fight, let me tell you...Here, want to see it?" Jack pressed a button on a nearby control panel, and what Danny had taken as a spare Ghost Portal opened to reveal...

"BEWARE!" It was the Box Ghost, imprisoned in a sphere of anti-spectral energy projected by three power rods that extended from the ceiling and floor within the small closet-like space.

"The Box Ghost?" Danny asked incredulously, though to be honest, he really wasn't all that surprised.

"Well, I guess you could call it that," Maddie conceded, "it really does seem to like boxes. We've run tests on it and taken ectoplasm samples. The data is really..."

Danny barely heard the rest of Maddie's rambling. He was staring at the Box Ghost's enclosure with a mixture of revulsion and pity. The Box Ghost really did look miserable; other than his usual greeting, he had said nothing—just merely sat, dejected, in his bubble.

"...How long ago did you capture him?" Danny asked, finally finding his voice.

"Oh, about three to four years ago..." Jack said, gesturing expansively.

"And, aside from tests, he's been in there the whole time?"

"Yeah, of course! You don't think we'd risk losing our only test subject, do you?" Jack laughed. Noticing the look on Danny's face, Jack reassured him, "Don't worry, Danny, it's just a ghost, not like it has _feelings_ or anything..."

Danny nodded just to pacify him, feeling cold. He had never felt sorrier for another ghost before, but he felt it now. To be locked away from the rest of the world, away from anything he had ever dreamed of or hoped for or loved...

**You know, there's a message in that.**

Whatever _that_ was supposed to mean, Danny knew one thing: Regardless of his parents' attitude toward ghosts, it would be wrong not to do anything about this.

Both sides of him seemed to agree.


	3. A Dish Best Served Cold

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Just so you know, I absolutely hated writing this chapter, but it had to be in there (Plot outline, villain introduction, pacing and all that). So, I performed my duty as authoress and wrote it. Be happy.

Disclaimer: We are not worthy of Butch's awesomeness. Fear him.

**Chapter 3:** **A Dish Best Served Cold**

"Justice began with revenge, and revenge is the only justice some beings can hope for."—Chancellor Palpatine, _Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith_

XxXxX

There is not much to be found in the way of joy at Nemesene State Penitentiary. The prison's name has gone down in infamy for boasting the highest record of inmate violence for any jail in North America. Not very many occupants live long enough to serve out their sentences. Most inhabitants of Nemesene are of the muscle-bound hulk variety, for one has to be to survive the sporadic fights that invariably and inevitably spring up amongst the inmates.

The exception to that rule sits in a cold, cramped cell. A pale, skinny man, seemingly in his mid- to late forties, he has a long aquiline nose and small beady gray eyes that dart from side to side; he looks as though he is anticipating something.

Footsteps echo down the hallway. They stop at the door of his cell, bringing with them the prison warden. "Cell 2187, block AA-23, prisoner number 122-505?" the warden asks lazily, as if he really couldn't care less. The man nods warily, hardly daring to hope.

The warden produces a set of keys, unlocks the cell, and points to a door at the end of the prison corridor.

"Mister Eduard Friechscho, you're free to go."

XxXxX

After ten long years of confinement, left to stew in his own frustration and resentment, Eduard felt alive again. Ironic that the sun and open air, so irritating and abhorrent before, now were some of the sources of this inexplicable feeling of contentment. He'd have to fix that, or he'd face expulsion from the Goths of the US Association—

He blinked. What was he thinking? He'd been in prison for ten years; of course he'd been kicked out. It was rather liberating in a way. None of his family was alive, and he had no friends. Now his schedule was freed up to allow him the wonderful sweet pleasure he'd been waiting and planning for so long in prison.

Revenge.

As Freakshow, ringmaster of the Circus Gothica, he'd had fame, fortune, and legions of adoring fans, but what he missed most of all was his staff—the ability to hold someone's will in his hands and twist it to his own designs. Though, the ghosts were not really _someones_, they were _somethings_: subhuman mockeries of sentient beings. It was probably a mercy to their doomed souls to give them a higher calling in their pseudo-lives.

Then he'd come to Amity Park, and found a perfect specimen: relatively young, strong, healthy, powerful, if perhaps a bit...rebellious. Yes, rebellious was the right word. Eduard had almost _had_ him completely; he could _feel_ the ghost's initial resistance eroding quicker and quicker, but—

The girl! She'd tried to _save_ the ghost, like it was a _person_. Impossible. A ghost couldn't have friends. Yet there it was: somehow, the girl's presence bolstered the ghost's resistance immensely—and then Eduard had lost it. The staff, passed down through his family for generations, was smashed to bits and ruined on the unforgiving ground.

Nothing could ever make him forget that day, and he'd sworn to find the goth girl and ghost boy and _make them pay..._

The plan was simple, really: Find that bumbling family of ghost hunters from Amity Park, convince them to track down the ghost child (certainly they had a radar of some kind), discover some ghost-controlling device similar to his staff, subjugate the ghost's free will in the most distressing and painful method possible, then (once he was absolutely certain the ghost was under his control) send it out to find the goth girl, wherever she would be, and have it kill her. Eduard felt confident that this plan would deliver the maximum possible amount of emotional trauma and torment to the both of them. He let a smile—a real, genuine smile!—spread across his pale face.

Who says Goths don't have fun?

A/N: Sorry for the shortness, but I really couldn't drag it out any longer. I dislike writing Freakshow's POV, but from an authoress standpoint, it is rather interesting trying to develop his character. Tell me how I did!


	4. Haunted

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Presenting...the magical, marvelous, and all-important "flashback chapter"! No applause, please, just money. waits cricket cricket Ah, well, can't blame me for trying...

Disclaimer: B-U-T-C-H! Who do we appreciate? Butch! Butch! Yay, Butch Hartman! people run in fear

**Chapter 4:** **Haunted**

_These wounds won't seem to heal_

_This pain is just too real_

_There's just so much that time cannot erase_—Evanescence, _My Immortal_

XxXxX

Danny spent the rest of his day observing his old hometown by daylight. His ghost sense still went off continuously, but it was less noticeable during the day. Also, it was weaker, probably because most of the ghosts went to sleep during the day. There seemed to be an uneasy peace between the ghosts and the few townspeople left: The ghosts stayed away during the day, and the humans stayed away during the night. Anyone on either side who violated this unspoken agreement was fair game.

Danny was astonished to find Mister Lancer still teaching at Casper High. The formerly out-of-shape teacher had lost his paunch, and was now a gaunt, wiry shadow of his former self. "Homer's _Odyssey_, Mr. Fenton, what the heck are you doing here?" Lancer asked him when he walked in during lunch period.

Danny shrugged. "In the neighborhood," he replied vaguely, not really very keen to divulge details.

"Well, make sure the librarian doesn't catch you—you never returned _Great Expectations_. I must say, though, I was disappointed that you dropped out. You could have gone far."

"Mr. Lancer, I was a C student," Danny said, bewildered.

"No, but you had a good head on your shoulders, though perhaps a knack for getting into trouble. Test grades aren't always the best indication of one's future," Mr. Lancer shrugged.

"So I've learned," Danny said ironically.

Everywhere Danny went, people had changed. Star, Paulina's former satellite, was now working the counter at the drugstore. Kwan made his home in an alleyway. No one walked alone, and every adult over twenty-one carried a ghost weapon of some kind, be it thermos, lipstick, or Jack-o'-Nine-Tails.

Not many people recognized him. That suited Danny perfectly. Less awkward questions that way.

He sat on a bench in the park a few hours before nightfall, physically alert but emotionally exhausted. And his inner demons were starting to chew at him again.

**Without someone to fight the ghosts and keep them in the Ghost Zone, this place fell apart.**

_If you're trying to make me feel guilty, it won't work._

**And why is that? Maybe because you already feel too guilty over...something else.**

_Shut up. Just shut up._

**You insist to me that it was an accident, yet you've convinced yourself it was all your fault. Make up your mind.**

_Hard to, with you messing around in there._

**_I_ haven't messed with anything. _You're_ the one in denial.**

Danny put his head in his hands and looked across the cityscape. Against his will, he sank back into reminiscences of the day that forever derailed his life...

XxXxX

On Friday, December 16, eight years previously, Jazz had come home for an early start of Christmas vacation. She was doing well at her college of choice (Stanford), and showed up unexpectedly. Of course, Danny would never admit it, but he had missed her a lot and was ecstatic to have her back.

Danny had vowed that no ghost-fighting would get in the way of his time with his sister, but who was he kidding? Late that evening, his ghost sense went off, right on cue. He made an excuse to escape his parents, hating himself, but to his surprise, Jazz cornered him and insisted on coming along.

Danny didn't argue very hard. Why would he? Chasing down wayward spirits with his older sister—it would be just like old times. She grabbed a thermos and the Fenton Peeler; he dove under a dumpster and came out as Danny Phantom.

The ghost in question was a shape-shifter. While certainly nothing they hadn't seen before, this one was proving tough to capture. Jazz was standing on the roof of Bucky's Music Mega-Store trying to aim the Fenton Peeler at the ghost, but not wanting to hit Danny. Danny was hitting the ghost with everything he had, but to no avail, while the ghost fought furiously, flicking through changes so quickly it was a blur—snake, eagle, bear, wolf, porcupine—

_It's no good! _he panted into the Fenton Phones so Jazz could hear him. _I'm gonna have to break out the big guns! Wait until it slows down, then hit it with the Peeler, and that should do it. If it doesn't, we'll improvise._

_Copy that, little brother,_ Jazz's reply came over the Phones. _Ready when you are._

Danny hadn't had to use his Ghostly Wail for a while now, but he remembered how. He let his primal survival instincts and adrenaline from the fight overcome him, while he took a deep breath. Almost automatically, a raw surge of power coursed through him at the same time as he let loose with a scream that channeled that power surge into a powerful shockwave blast of sound. He was getting pretty good at it, too.

The ghost was no match for that; indeed, it hadn't even seen it coming. Losing control of its form, it collapsed into an inky-black puddle.

Jazz, protected from the Wail's sound blast by the Fenton Phones, took aim with the Peeler and fired an energy-scattering beam that ripped the puddle's molecular configuration into multiple atom-thin layers. It dispersed into radioactive fog. Danny stopped to take a steadying breath and let the Wail's echoes die out.

Neither of them noticed the foundation of the music store building Jazz was standing on begin to weaken. Neither of them noticed the fractures in the outside wall.

But they both noticed when a terrifying crunching sound filled the air, and the building began to fall apart.

Danny was still in ghost mode—he had used the Wail enough to be able to maintain his form. But he was still weak—too weak to fly to rescue her, too weak even to cry out. All that escaped his lips was a desperate whisper—

_Jazz..._

She fell backwards off the crumbling roof, sailed down two stories and landed on her leg. There was a sickening snap.

_...no..._

She was still alive, though, and that was good. Her leg would be fine, given medical attention at once, a cast would be all it took, and she'd be fine. She was alright.

Until six-and-a-half tons of brick and concrete fell on top of her.

Then she was not alright at all.

XxXxX

Barely aware of what he was doing, Danny rushed over and desperately began shifting the rubble away. There was a connection, he knew it—get Jazz free quickly, and she'd be fine. She had to be. There was no way she _couldn't _be fine. Danny refused to even entertain the notion.

But when Danny cleared enough to see her, his heart sank. She had covered her head with her arms, one of which was still encased in the Fenton Peeler armor, but a chunk of building had snapped a rib, poking clear through her left lung and almost reaching her heart. She would be dead within minutes.

Her eyes flickered open, and she gazed up imploringly at Danny. _Danny..._ she whispered.

He couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.

_Tell them...promise me...you'll tell..._ Already her eyes were glazing over. A trickle of blood dribbled over her lip.

_Jazz_, Danny whispered, finding his voice. _Jazz, I promise, I'll tell Mom and Dad, I promise, just _please_...hold on...please, don't leave..._

But she was already gone.

XxXxX

As luck would have it, that's exactly when Jack and Maddie turned up to see Amity Park's resident ghost boy lifting their daughter's broken body from a pile of bloodstained debris. The first person in the curious crowd that they could grab and interrogate hurriedly said something about, _The ghost kid screams and BAM! The building comes down. _

Which was all they needed to hear.

"_Oh my God—**Jazz**!"_ Maddie Fenton rushed to the side of the body of her daughter. When she saw that there was nothing to be done, she let out a cry of pure grief and despair that rivaled Danny's own Ghostly Wail.

Danny was still in shock. His white gloves were soaked in red blood, but he barely registered it. His brain seemed to have filled with a thick blank buzzing so intense it was almost a physical pain. He kept trying to say something to his parents, ghost mode be damned, but the only sound he could make was a sort of choked half-sob.

_-Ah-...-ah-..._

Jack Fenton turned and saw him. Over two years of chasing down Public Ghost Enemy Number One prompted him to go for his thermos, but then he paused to consider all the mitigating factors:

One, the ghost kid had been eluding him for years.

Two, according to witnesses, he was in some way connected with the gruesome death of Jack's beautiful daughter.

Three, he was covered in said daughter's blood.

Jack decided he'd prefer the big gun.

_Ghost kid!_ Jack's shout and the by-now irritatingly familiar whine of an ecto-gun charging up snapped Danny out of his shocked reverie.

_Wha—? _

Jack's voice was so choked with rage, despair, and hatred, and his eyes so clouded with unshed tears, that it was an absolute wonder the large, lethal-looking weapon he pointed at Danny was so steady. _Listen, ghost kid, I don't care what you say, or how powerful you are, but I swear on everything known to man, I will hunt you down and make you pay for what you've done to my family. Ghost or no, I will **kill** you. I'm giving you fifteen seconds to get out of my line of vision before I forcibly remove you. I suggest you use them._

Danny still stood there, blinking as if dazed by a sharp blow to the head. His mind refused to process what he just heard from his own father. He had sounded...dangerous. To the point of actually being capable of making good on his threat.

_I said, **MOVE!**_ Before Danny realized it, he was halfway home, hurtling through the air at a speed far exceeding his previous record of 142 mph.

He phased through the window into his room, and turned human in a flash of white light. Hardly aware of what he was doing, Danny grabbed the biggest backpack he owned and started throwing things into it—clothes, shoes, ghost weapons, a notebook containing addresses, his life savings, some random items—

He froze when he realized that he was holding Jazz's beloved Bearbert Einstein.

In that instant, the stark-cold realization of the fact that Jazz was dead and not coming back hit him like an oncoming train, so hard that he doubled over as if punched and retched on the floor. Vaguely, he saw that he was still covered in his sister's blood even after turning human, and that only sharpened the edge of the pain that cut at him like a thousand knives. He wanted to rip his chest open and claw his heart out if that was what would stop it.

Oh, God, what had he **_done?_**

How could this **_happen?_**

He moaned, a feral whimper of agony that started from the depths of his lungs and forced itself out through his clenched teeth, while his whole body trembled and shuddered in revulsion at the pure cruel truth of what had happened: that Jazz was dead because of _him_.

He lay hunched over on the floor, wracked with sobs of pain and grief for what felt like hours, but when they subsided, he saw that only a few minutes had passed.

He couldn't waste any more time. He knew what he had to do.

Five minutes later, Jazz's car pulled out of the Fenton's driveway and drove silently out into the fading night.

XxXxX

Danny was still sitting on the park bench when the sun began to set. Loath to be caught outside after dark for the second night in a row, he stood up and began walking home, wiping his eyes on his sleeve as he went.

A/N: Awwww...poor, sad, sweet Danny. Review, and I'll tell you what happened to Tucker and Sam! Oh, and if the italics during the flash back messed you up, I made all the dialogue in italics instaed of quotes to make it more flashbacky. Just to clear that up...

P.S. Pray for my friend's dad. He died on Friday, December 16, after a long battle with cancer. :'(


	5. Allies and Adversaries

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Yeah, I'm writing this fast enough, but I have trouble getting on the computer to type it up without alerting my folks, so... If I take a while between updates, fear not! It's just technical trouble on my end.

Disclaimer: Give to Butch what belongs to Butch (pretty much everything in this fanfiction), and give to God what belongs to God (pretty much everything in this universe, including Butch).

**Chapter 5:** **Allies and Adversaries**

"You friends help you carry the big weight in life. That big burden we've all got called, 'What the hell am I doing?'"—Jerry Seinfeld

XxXxX

Dawn crept in, bleaching the grayish, faded "Welcome to Elmerton" sign to a golden-white glow. Amity Park's sister city, while not nearly as ghost-ridden as her better-known counterpart, is still a rough place at the best of times. If you don't know how to handle yourself, you at least have to look tough. Formidable; an opponent worthy of respect.

The gun-toting woman on the hoverboard had both parts down, obviously.

The quiet whine of the sleek craft's engines increased in pitch as she amped up the speed, zooming along the deserted early-morning streets. The woman herself could not be identified—her red jumpsuit and hood concealed her face and defining features.

She whirled the vehicle around a tight curve and came to a dead halt in midair, jumping up and flipping with the energy of the released momentum, and landed on her feet three feet away from a man in a red beret holding a stopwatch.

"Four minutes, fifteen seconds," he said, grinning.

"Damn," she said.

She pulled back her hood to reveal dark-green eyes set in a chocolate-skinned face. Waves of tight brown-black curls cascaded down. She shook a finger at the man in mock accusation, serious yet playful. "You told me you had this thing fixed," she admonished.

"I did. You're the one who must have stopped at Starbucks halfway across town. What took so long?" the man retorted, grinning impishly.

She pouted. "I like my coffee, Tuck. You know that."

Tucker had certainly changed in the past eight years. He finally hit a growth spurt in his senior year of high school, and began working out after trying out for the wrestling team. He maintained his workout schedule faithfully from then on, and it showed—he now had biceps, pecs, and abs worthy of a bodybuilder's magazine. The top two buttons on his shirt were left open so one could see the quadratic formula tattooed on his collarbone.

Valerie, for she was the woman on the glider, had barely changed at all, except for one important point: She was now called Mrs. Valerie Foley-Gray.

"Want to pack it in?" Tucker asked her as she folded up the glider and holstered her gun. "Diana should be waking up soon."

"I swear, that kid gets up so early..." Valerie muttered in disbelief, as they started walking towards the otherwise-abandoned apartment building they called home.

XxXxX

"Mornin'!" came a bright and cheery cry when the Foley-Grays walked into their kitchen. A rare smile broke across Valerie's face as she bent down to pick up her three-year-old daughter and set her on her shoulders.

"Hey, honey!" Valerie said. "How's my slice of sunshine pie today?"

"You and Daddy need to get more cereal," the child informed her. "We're all out of Lucky Charms."

Diana Foley-Gray was a very precocious child. She said her first word ("duck") at eighteen months, shortly before she began walking. Right now, at age three, she could recite the Pledge of Allegiance and work a laptop computer. Tucker hoped to have her dismantling and reassembling hard drives by age five.

"I'll remember that," Valerie laughed, as she dumped the giggling toddler onto the overstuffed couch, then plunked down herself. "Well, let's see what's on the six a.m. news," she said, glancing at Diana, who made a face.

"News—blecch!" Diana scowled. Valerie laughed again.

"...and from the news archives this morning, Thursday the twentieth of September," the anchor was saying, "Ten years ago today, the ghost boy Danny Phantom was named Public Ghost Enemy Number One following an attack on the mayor of Amity Park. Phantom was involved in many other ghost incidents after that, being reported as both villain and hero by people on both sides of the issue. After an incident in which an eighteen-year-old girl was killed, Phantom reportedly was never seen again..."

"You remember that, Tuck?" Valerie called over her shoulder to Tucker, who was in the kitchen brewing coffee.

"Who could forget it?" Tucker asked ruefully. Certainly _he_ would remember his best friend until his dying day.

He had never told anyone Danny's secret, partly out of loyalty to his friend, and partly out of a realistic view that it no longer mattered anyway, seeing as how Danny was gone.

"Mommy, did _you_ know the ghost boy?" Diana asked Val, with all the wide-eyed innocence of her three years.

"No, sweetie, because your mommy had to fight the ghost boy," Valerie told her.

"_Wow_," Diana said, her eyes widening in awe. Then she thought, and said, "But I thought you and Daddy said that fighting is _bad_."

"What you have to understand, honey," Tucker jumped in, saving Valerie from having to answer, "is that your mommy's **_job_** was to fight ghosts and keep them a way from the city. But I don't _ever_ want to see you fighting with _anyone_. Get it?"

"Got it!" Diana saluted her dad. Valerie sighed with relief, while Tucker raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"But Daddy," Diana persisted, "My friend says that her mommy and Daddy say that the ghost boy was _good_. Are they right?"

Valerie said, "No", at the same time that Tucker said, "Yes". Both of them stopped and looked at each other.

"Mommy and Daddy say different things," Tucker told her. "And, uh, shouldn't you be cleaning your room?"

"Oh-_kaayyyy_..." she sulked, getting up and going to her room. The minute the door closed, Valerie turned to Tucker.

"How can you still defend him?" she demanded.

"There's more to that than you know-" Tucker said.

"—Tucker, intentionally or not, he caused the death of your best friend's sister! Danny dropped out of high school and ran away—we haven't seen him for eight years, and here you are, still defending that—that—_freak_?"

"Valerie, we've both established our views on this many times over. I'm not going to convince you, you're not going to convince me, so can we please drop it?"

Valerie scowled darkly at him. "Fine," she muttered.

They'd had this conversation on numerous occasions for the past three and a half years they'd been married, and every time, Tucker always ended up remembering the last time he—or anyone else—had seen Danny.

The kid had shown up on Tucker's front porch—white, shaking, and covered in blood—holding a box full of every item Tucker and Sam had ever lent him, plus a vast array of ghost-related items and weaponry, some of which Danny's parents had never been able to make work. When Tucker opened hi mouth to ask _what the heck is going on_, Danny shoved the box into his arms and stammered out something along the lines of _I'm never coming back, Jazz is dead, protect the town for me, and tell Sam I'm sorry, tell her I loved her, but you guys aren't safe with me here, bye_, then he left in Jazz's car.

Tucker hadn't seen him since. No one had, at least not to his knowledge. For the first few months, Sam went through a bad time, hysterically insisting that Danny would come back and that anyone who said otherwise needed a good disembowelment, but eventually she gave up. Later, she went to college and joined Greenpeace. Every now and then, she'd stop in and say hi to Tuck and Val.

Rationally, Tucker knew that Danny was gone for good—maybe dead or living on the streets somewhere. Even so, Tucker could never ditch that tiny, tiny hope inside him that one day, during some ghost attack or another, Danny would turn up, quirky smile, lame jokes and all, and everything could go back to the way it was.

What Tucker didn't know was that yes, Danny was back, but nothing would ever be the way it was again.

XxXxX

_Danny looked around, an eerie sense of déjà vu coming over him as he surveyed his surroundings. He was in the Fentons' basement lab, but it was completely deserted. Even the colors looked faded._

_He glanced around apprehensively, then started as a familiar voice both echoed in his mind and sounded out in the open somehow. **Over here...**_

_He spotted a switch on a nearby control panel and threw it, hardly knowing why. A pair of doors hissed open, revealing the Box Ghost's enclosure, but it was not the Box Ghost who resided there at the moment._

_It was him._

_More to the point, it was his ghostly alter ego, Danny Phantom. He still looked as he had when he was sixteen—scrawny and underfed, but slightly more well-built than when he was fourteen, as a result of two extra years' worth of ghost fighting._

_**You can't pretend any longer, Danny...** Phantom informed him, speaking inside Danny's mind without moving his lips. _

Pretend what? _Danny tried to ask defiantly, but the words had a strange, ethereal echo when he spoke them aloud._

_**You can't deny who you are, Danny. These people need a protector,** Phantom said insistently, green eyes burning almost painfully into the blue of Danny's own. **You need a protector. You've been hiding all these years, but now it's time to come out** **and face your destiny.**_

What right do you have to tell me what to do? _Danny demanded angrily._ Who are you to make me do anything?

**_Who am I? I'm you, Danny,_** _Phantom_ _persisted. **You've denied me for so long that I've been reduced to nothing but a voice in the back of your mind, a mirage of who you once were...but no more. Let me out. Set me free. Set yourself free...**_

Never. Never again, _Danny snarled, even though the desire to give in was inexplicably strong, eating at him, telling him everything would be okay if he just let himself go... _I've seen what you can do—I've done what you can do! Innocent people get hurt. Lives get lost. It's over. I'm never going through that again. Not on your afterlife.

_Phantom just stared at him, green eyes blazing with emotions Danny couldn't identify—loneliness? Anger? Irritation? Resentment?_

_Pain?_

_Regret?_

_...Sadness?_

I'm—I'm not, _Danny repeated shakily._

_Phantom closed those intense eyes, and slowly shook his head. **I can't help you much longer, Danny. As old memories fade, so too will I, eventually. Then your most important part will die with me, but you won't know it until it's already lost. You must decide, Danny...**_

—_the doors were closing_—

_**...before it is too late...**_

—_the room was fading—_

_**...for both of us.**_

XxXxX

Danny woke up with a sharp gasp, chest heaving as he panted as though awakened from some nightmare. Which, he supposed, he had. "Stupid, lousy, damn..." he swore at nothing in particular. After a stray thought hit him, he rolled out of his bed and dashed down to his parents' lab as quickly and quietly as possible.

He hit the switch to the Box Ghost's enclosure, and sighed with relief as only a sleeping Box Ghost was revealed.

"I really must be losing it," he muttered, realizing how much his dream had shaken him. Then he looked at the Box Ghost.

After wrestling with an insane idea for about two and a half minutes, Danny gave in, sighing, "Dammit, I _am_ losing it." He keyed in a code on the control panel, praying that Jack hadn't changed the password ("ghosts-must-die") in the past eight years.

He hadn't. The sphere of anti-spectral energy powered down and faded out, freeing the Box Ghost.

The Box Ghost woke up, looked around in disbelief, then leapt up, hovering while declaring, "The Box Ghost is finally liberated from that spherical containment device! And I am now free to reunite myself with—"

"—Shut up!" Danny hissed. "You'll wake up my parents! You're free, so just shut up and go!"

The Box Ghost gave a start, like he had only now just noticed Danny, and asked incredulously, "Can it be? The halfa styling himself Danny Phantom has returned?"

Danny actually growled at him, and the Box Ghost got the message. Drawing himself up, he yelled out joyfully, "BEWARE!" before floating up through the ceiling and out of sight.

A/N: Whoa, long chappie. Coming up soon, the fabled graveyard scene, a flashback to fun times with Uncle Vlad (not), and a conversation with...someone. Review!


	6. Don't Fear the Reaper

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Okay, first, I'd like to thank you all for your beautiful reviews. Unfortunately, I am unable, for personal reasons, to reply to them. But don't think for a moment that they aren't appreciated! Oh, no, no, no, I love them. But I can't reply to them. I'm sorry.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction, now would I? Sheesh...

**Chapter 6:** **Don't Fear the Reaper**

Deep in earth my love is lying

And I must weep alone

--"Deep in Earth", by Edgar Allan Poe

XxXxX

Danny raced out of the lab as fast as humanly possible. He most certainly did not want to be anywhere near when his parents discovered the absence of their precious test subject. Snatching his jacket and backpack, he slipped quickly out into the early-morning streets. Already, a few people were up to begin the day, but not many, and none of them acknowledged Danny.

He didn't know where he wanted to go; his dream still hung over his thoughts like a cloud, so he figured a walk would do him some good.

Danny kept walking, hardly caring where his feet decided to carry him. He'd stopped for coffee before a thought struck him—he'd never stopped to visit Jazz's grave.

XxXxX

The Amity Park cemetery was, surprisingly, pretty much ghost-free, according to Danny's ghost sense, which had become much more fine-tuned over the years. Danny knelt quietly in the grass in silent reflection. He put out his hand and touched Jazz's gravestone, on which was inscribed the message, _Jazz Fenton. Loving daughter. Caring sister. Gone, but not forgotten._

"Well, Jazz, it's been a while. The city's pretty much a dump without you. Actually, most everywhere I've been is a dump without you," he said quietly, looking down. He stayed there for a few moments before asking himself, "What am I doing here? Jazz, I can't tell them. They'd go off the deep end—well, further than they are now, anyway. I should just _leave_, before I make things worse. I—I can't tell them. It would kill them."

He seemed to stop for an answer, but none were forthcoming. After a while, he asked again, even more softly, "What am I doing here?"

A few minutes went by. "I got you something," Danny said, reaching into his bag and producing... "Signed by Ray Nitschke," he said, holding a football. "I know you liked it," he continued to tell the headstone, placing the ball next to it. "You were quite a Packers fan yourself, even if you never admitted it."

Danny half-grinned wanly, and then his smile faded. "I don't think its previous owner will want it back anytime soon," he added.

XxXxX

Of course, that previous owner was none other than Vladimir Masters, multi-billionaire. Unfortunately, the last thing he bought was the farm. He'd been dead for about six years now.

Danny was the last person to have seen him before his death. After spending a month on the road following his departure from Amity Park, eating at truck stops and sleeping in parking lots, Danny gave in and turned up on Vlad's doorstep.

"_Well, young badger, what brings you here?" Vlad inquired with mock courtesy. "Come to beat me up? Make me apologize for all the cracks I made about your idiot father?" Then Vlad noticed the deadly serious, almost grievous expression on the boy's face. There were large bags under his eyes, a limp, bedraggled look to his hair, and a pale cast to his skin. His eyes held a haunted look. "What's wrong, my boy?"_

"_Vlad, I need...a favor," Danny said. One would expect their...colorful history to prompt Danny to speak such a sentence in a surly, defiant manner, but no. Danny was completely deadpan. _

"_A favor?" Vlad asked guardedly. "My dear boy, how long have you known me?"_

"_Vlad, my sister is dead," Danny informed him. "I ran away—my family is in a shambles. Alright, forget the favor—I'll make you a deal. You have to promise me you'll leave my family alone. My mom already lost me and Jazz. She doesn't need to lose my father, too."_

"_Fair enough for you, but the word 'deal' implies that I get something in return, Daniel," Vlad reminded him. _

_Danny swallowed hard, looked down at the ground, and mumbled something inaudible._

"_Excuse me?"_

"_I said, 'I'll stay with you,'" Danny snapped. "You're constantly nagging me to renounce my family and join you, here's your wish granted. No running away, no spying on you, no beating up you or your henchpeople, and no wisecracks about you getting a cat. Take it or leave it, Vlad."_

_After a few moments in which Vlad seemed to size up Danny, trying to determine whether he was telling the truth or trying to kill him, he smiled ambiguously and held out a hand._

"_I'll take it...son."_

Vlad wasn't stupid. Over two years' worth of antagonization on both their parts didn't really lead to a trusting relationship between Vlad and Danny. They each had their own set of ground rules that the other would respect if this was going to work out.

Vlad's were: one, Danny would not go ghost without Vlad's permission (and he would know if this rule was breached); and two, Danny would at least attempt to act like Vlad's son, with a minimal amount of growling, eye-rolling, and death stares.

Danny's rules: one, he wouldn't be going ghost at all, so suck it, Vlad; two, Vlad couldn't make him do anything he didn't want to; and three, Vlad would never, under any circumstances, call Danny "son"—conversely, Danny would not call him "dad". It was an uneasy truce, but a truce nonetheless.

For the first three days, Danny locked himself in his room and refused to emerge, despite Vlad's numerous insistences that Danny at least come out and eat. On the fourth day, he gave up and went for the direct approach.

_Danny sat on his bed with his arms hugging his legs so the side of his face could rest against his knees. He stared at the rain lashing against the ornate colored-glass windows, apparently oblivious to the rest of the world._

_Well, not that oblivious. A chill ran briefly down his spine, and he involuntarily gasped. His breath crystallized in the air despite the moderately warm room temperature. _

"_Beat it, Vlad," he snapped, chucking a throw pillow at a seemingly blank stretch of wall. The pillow hit –something—and the something that wasn't the wall said, "Ow!"_

_Vlad Plasmius shimmered into the visible spectrum and asked, "How did you know it was me?"_

"_Oh, it's been a while since you've done something annoying, and I figured you were due," Danny retorted, with his usual charm._

_Vlad sighed, and changed back into his human form. "Um," he said, looking rather confused and uncomfortable, "Is there, ah, anything you want to...well, talk about?"_

_Danny gave him a look that was part hostility, part incredulity, part curiosity, and part you-gotta-be-kidding-me, and asked, "Are you seriously asking me that?"_

"_Well...I understand you're going through a tough time, obviously—I mean you're here, aren't you?—what with the loss of your sister and all, I just was wondering..." He trailed off as Danny showed no signs of spontaneously opening up. Vlad lowered his voice, and added, "I heard...rumors...that—"_

_Danny gave him the "scary eyes", and said in a tone that had "Drop it" carved into it with a chisel, "I'm **not** talking about it, Vlad. Now kindly get out of my room."_

_Vlad put his hands up in a, "I get it, subject dropped," gesture, then phased through the wall and left. _

_Danny mumbled to himself for a few moments, and shouted at the wall Vlad left through, "You know, normal people use the door!"_

_But he came down for dinner a few hours later._

He spent six months at Vlad's house. The first two months were filled with a lot of tension and subdued hostility, but, eventually, though neither would ever admit it, they sort of bonded. Vlad found his big, empty castle to be a little less empty with someone besides his ghost employees, and even grew to secretly enjoy Danny's sharp wit and sarcastic remarks. Danny found Vlad to be an oddly comforting presence for some inexplicable reason. Vlad didn't judge him, despite the fact that all the news reports painted a rather...uncomplimentary portrait of him.

Since Danny categorically refused to do anything ghost-related, Vlad endeavored to teach him chess instead.

_Danny sat at a table across from Vlad. Between them lay a chessboard at which Danny was staring with an expression comparable to a six-year-old's at the controls of a 747. "Okay, you did promise to go easy on me, right?" Danny asked for clarification. Vlad nodded exasperatedly. Danny gingerly reached out and inched a bishop forward to capture Vlad's white queen. The he screwed up his face as though waiting for an explosion. When none were forthcoming, Danny blinked and threw his hands in the air._

"_I got your queen! Wahoo! Oh, yeah, uh-huh, it's my—"_

_Danny's victory dance was cut short by a simple, smug, "Checkmate," from Vlad. Danny's face fell like the stock market on Black Tuesday. "But—"_

"_You opened a hole in your defense when you moved your bishop, Daniel. I set you up. You were too quick to take the advantage and fell for the bait. Rule number one, Daniel: Never underestimate the enemy."_

"_Awwww, mannn..." Danny sulked._

Eventually, though, Danny began to chafe. He felt he needed to get out and make a life for himself before he ever could go back and face his parents. Vlad, however, disagreed.

"_And precisely what would you be doing, Daniel?" Vlad inquired, seeing Danny packing all the things he had brought with him back into his backpack. Danny tossed in one last item, zipped up his bag, and tossed it onto his shoulders._

"_You know, Vlad," he sighed, "honestly, it's been great and all that. Wow, there're a few words I never thought I'd say in a row. Anyway, I think it's time I went out on my own now, you know, see the outside world a little...See you."_

_Vlad raised both eyebrows and gaped at him for a couple of seconds before regaining his cool and said, almost chuckling in disbelief, "Oh-ho-ho-ho no, you can't leave."_

"_Uh, yeah, I can, Vlad. Look, I know you're lonely and all, and maybe that's why this is kinda hard for you, but maybe you should look into getting a nice girlfriend, or even that cat..."_

"_You're **not** leaving, Daniel."_

"_Watch me. Don't make this harder than it—oomph!"_

_Vlad had changed into his Plasmius form and pinned Danny to the wall. "I don't recall giving you permission to leave, Daniel," he hissed. Danny rolled his eyes, surprisingly cool, despite being held up by his neck._

"_I don't recall needing any, Vlad. Now put me down before things get ugly." Saying this, he dropped his backpack and swung his feet out hard to connect with Vlad's solar plexus. Vlad dropped him painfully, the wind knocked out of him._

"_Going ghost!" Danny called grimly, feeling the sudden shift in awareness as the two familiar white rings formed around his midsection, turning him from human to ghost._

_By this time, Vlad was ready, and blasted Danny hard in the shoulder before tackling him. Danny hit his head, not prepared, and saw stars. Vlad shot some kind of adherent that glued Danny to the wall. "You aren't going anywhere," Vlad snarled._

_Danny sighed. "You've put me in a bad spot, Vlad. I don't want to do this but..." He inhaled slowly, almost dramatically, as Vlad raised an eyebrow at what he saw as Danny's bluff—and blasted Vlad right in the face with his Ghostly Wail._

_Vlad was caught thoroughly off guard, and subsequently thrown through the door into his front hallway. The glass cases for all his precious football memorabilia shattered, the agent bonding Danny to the wall dissolved, and the front doors themselves were blown into fragments._

_Vlad's eyelids fluttered, and he moaned weakly, changing involuntarily back into his human form. "What the..."_

_By now, Danny had retrieved his pack and changed human himself. He walked over numerous shattered bits of glass and splintered wood to Vlad, and, placing a foot on his chest, he leaned down until his face was about a foot from Vlad's._

"_Never underestimate the enemy," he whispered. Vlad's eyes rolled back and he passed out._

_Danny began to walk out, but something caught his eye. He grabbed a football off a pile of debris and took it with him._

_He never looked back._

XxXxX

"He died a few months later," Danny informed Jazz's gravestone. "The ecto-filtrator in his lab needed replacing. The castle blew up in his sleep. He never heard the alarm."

Danny shrugged. "I don't know why I never sold the football. That was my original plan, you know. A genuine Ray Nitschke would have fetched me enough to buy over four years' worth of food. I just never could bring myself to hock it. So, it's yours now."

He paused when his ghost sense went off.

"I am the Box Ghost! BEWARE!" Right on cue. Danny groaned. "Shouldn't you be in the Ghost Zone?" he directed at the floating blue apparition.

The Box Ghost shrugged. "The portal belonging to the angry hunters has been shut down, stranding me and my brethren on your plane. To be honest, we are not entirely displeased. Why do you speak of your adventures when no one is present?"

"That's none of your business," Danny snapped, feeling himself flush. "Why do _you_ follow me around?"

"Well, I..." Amazingly, the Box Ghost was looking extremely uncomfortable. "Being that you _did_ liberate me from my unjust imprisonment, I felt obligated to at least express my, um...gratitude..."

"So, you're saying 'thanks'?" Danny asked for clarification, feeling like the snow globe of his world had just been turned over and given a hearty shake.

The Box Ghost blinked a couple of times, and then raised his arms dramatically and bellowed, "I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

Danny gave a lopsided grin; he knew how the Box Ghost worked. "You're welcome." He got up from his kneeling position on the ground and sat on a nearby bench, running his hands through his hair in disbelief. "Boy, what a day..."

"You know, I had been wondering during my years of solitude..." Apparently, the Box Ghost was not going to leave him alone. Joy. "Why did you recant your oath to drive us, the wayward spirits, out of your town and back to the dimension whence we came?"

Danny sighed exasperatedly. "You wouldn't understand..."

"I am the Box Ghost! Do not assume that with my great fetish for all things square and cardboard, I have shut myself away from the outside world! Try me!"

"All right then, tell me: Have you ever, intentionally or not, killed anybody?"

The Box Ghost blinked. "I AM THE BOX GHOST!" he began to shout dramatically, as he was inclined to do when faced with an awkward question, but stopped at the stern look on Danny's face. "Ah, that is to say...no," he muttered.

"Didn't think so. Did you ever have a sibling, or a friend, someone you couldn't bear to lose, ever?"

"I am the Box Ghost! All things square and cardboard are precious to me!"

"Okay, then," Danny said, appalled that he was even _considering_ this metaphor, "imagine the biggest, squarest, cardboardiest, shiniest, best box you ever had—"

"Julia..." The Box Ghost stared off into the distance wistfully.

Danny winced. "...Right. Julia, then. Now, imagine you set Julia down to go find her another box, just for a second, and while you were gone, a big huge rock fell and crushed her flat."

The Box Ghost gasped, and his eyes bugged out in terror at the thought.

"Now, if you had set Julia three feet away in any direction, or not set her down at all, she'd still be...alive, I guess...but, _because you didn't_, she's gone. How would that make you feel?" The Box Ghost was still too rocked by the horror of what Danny had suggested, and couldn't speak.

"Well," Danny blinked and swallowed hard, "that's sort of like what happened to _my_ sister, because of me. Now it's _my_ fault Jazz is in a box—six feet under."

After a brief, meditative silence, the Box Ghost spoke up. "You asked how I would hypothetically feel in the metaphorical scenario you fabricated. Certainly I would be quite saddened and disturbed at the unintentional role I would have played in the demise of my Julia, but that is the point. It was unintentional. An accident."

"Yeah, but—"

"BUT NOTHING! I AM THE BOX GHOST!" he exploded quite unexpectedly. "Certainly you have every right to grieve your sister's loss, but guilt? You would not be mourning so much was it your _intention_ to cause her death, and you only deserve blame if you did it on purpose! Since this was clearly _not_ your intention, and you _are_ mourning, would it not then be logical to assume you are feeling guilty for the _wrong reasons_?"

Danny opened his mouth to reply, paused, closed it, thought a bit, opened it again, closed it, and thought again. He honestly could not answer that question. Heck, he barely could believe this whole situation. "Am I actually having this conversation with the _Box_ _Ghost_?" he incredulously wondered aloud.

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!" The Box Ghost must have thought that, since he had gone several sentences without announcing this, Danny had forgotten this.

"Okay, okay, you're the Box Ghost, I get it..."

Though Danny would never, ever, ever admit it, for some reason, talking about the incredible searing weight of responsibility for Jazz's death seemed to help lessen it a little...even if the only person he could talk to was the Box Ghost. Danny turned his head away uneasily, and muttered, "Well, um, thanks..."

An extremely awkward silence fell between the two of them, as if each had suddenly and at the same time remembered to whom he was speaking. Danny abruptly got up to leave, when—

A faint wisp of blue escaped his lips as a scream reached his ears.

A/N: Yay, cliffies! Oh, yeah, and with the completion of Chapter Six, Part One of Free Spirit is officially over! Next chapter preview: Danny makes a very important decision.

Review!


	7. Family Business

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Yay! I love this chapter! Read it!

Disclaimer: Too busy to bother, as it goes without saying...

**Chapter 7:** **Family Business**

_And I'm trying to be somebody_

_I'm not trying to be somebody else_

_This live is mine I'm living_

_Don't you know me? I won't ever let you down_—3 Doors Down, _Be Somebody_

XxXxX

Danny whipped his head around instinctively. The scream he had heard sounded close by. It also sounded feminine, and...familiar.

Without bothering to bid the Box Ghost farewell, he dashed out of the cemetery gates towards the alley he thought he heard the sound come from, all the while frantically rummaging through his pack for something, _anything_ that might be useful— journal, wallet, Jazz's bear, two Pop-Tarts, Plasmius Maximus— _there_!

Danny found a spare ectoblaster lipstick tube just as he rounded the corner to see Paulina (more conservatively garbed this time, thank heaven) backing fearfully away from a ghost Danny recognized as a Raver—a cross between what looked like a boar and a humanoid Velociraptor. They loved to prey on women, the younger the better, and were generally nuisances—albeit dangerous nuisances. Sam in particular would lay into them mercilessly with the Jack-o-Nine-Tails, often while shrieking about opposable thumbs, one-track minds, stupid berets, and such... But Danny couldn't afford to let old memories distract him at the moment.

"Come on, baby, let's dance..." the Raver sneered, the drool dripping down from its serrated tusks to puddle on the ground. Paulina had backed up against the dumpster at the far end of the alley, whimpering, her eyes squeezed shut in fear.

Danny snatched up the top to a nearby trashcan and held it before him like a shield, looking for all the world like a gladiator about to enter the ring. He shot a blast of energy at the Raver from behind.

The beast took the shot in its right shoulder, yelped, and whirled to see Danny, its reptilian yellow eyes narrowed in bestial hatred. Danny banged the trash can lid a few times to irritate it, knowing well that Ravers rely on their acute hearing to hunt rather than their poor eyesight.

After a few more bangs, the Raver lost it and charged the sound, bellowing animalistically—but Danny was no longer there, having dived into a snap-roll to avoid the beast's charge. He straightened up and backed over to Paulina, who instinctively clutched his right arm, terrified of the spectral malefactor that threatened them both. This was a normal enough reaction, but this prevented Danny from shooting again because his blaster was clutched in his right hand—now pinned against his side by the hysterical woman.

The Raver turned to face the both of them. Danny, in desperation, threw the trash can lid like a Frisbee and nailed the creature in the head. It had a thick skull, though, and now Danny had nothing left to throw, unless Paulina were to let go of his arm and free his blaster. Danny moved his left arm and shoulder over to hold Paulina by the right shoulder and shield her, praying that the Raver would see it as a threatening gesture and back off.

It didn't, unfortunately. The beast advanced menacingly, apparently rather ticked off that it had to work this hard to get at its prey. "Not a good move buddy..." it snarled, fangs dripping.

"You're out pretty late...or early, as it were," Danny said, gesturing with his head towards where the sun had come high enough to get an angle into the alley. "Busy night?" He was stalling, trying to lull it into a false sense of security, and the Raver knew it.

"Oh no, buddy, you wanna back away now..." The spectral monster twisted its fanged mouth into a mockery of a grin, eyes burning ferally. It knew it had them cornered; it wanted to toy with its prizes.

What it _didn't_ know, however, was that Danny was bending his right wrist ever so slowly, so as not to make a sound and tip his hand, and lining up a shot aimed under is left arm. Paulina, white and shaking, still clung to Danny's arm so hard that he was losing feeling in his fingertips.

The catch to his plan, of course, was that he only had one shot left. This blaster tube was one of the prototypes, and almost ten years old by now. He'd have to hit the thing accurately, and at precisely the right moment.

By now, the Raver had tired of the stalking game, and moved in for the kill. Roaring with triumph, it began to charge, but was caught square in the face by Danny's ectoblast. It fell backward onto its haunches, snarled—and was interrupted by a large, heavy crate crashing onto its head from _nowhere_.

"The Box Ghost wishes it known that he does not tolerate womanizers!" the Box Ghost turned up and announced from fifteen feet in the air. "Now, I must reunite myself with my beautiful Julia! But for now...BEWARE!" Off he flew.

The Raver had never had to endure this kind of pain and humiliation before. It turned tail and fled, squealing and snarling, "You're gonna pay, _punk_!"

Slightly relieved, Danny turned to the task of getting Paulina to let him use his arm again. "Hey, Paulina, it's okay, let's get you home..."

"Danny...it _is_ you..._gracias_, _muchas_ _gracias_..." she half-choked, half-sobbed. The color began to return to her cheeks, and she loosened her iron clutch on Danny's arm. He began to walk her out of the alleyway as she began to regain her composure. People were starting to get out on the streets in earnest, so Paulina let go of Danny completely and smoothed her clothes and hair down, to Danny's eternal gratitude.

"Well, ah...yeah, Fenton. Maybe I'll see you around town," she added, giving him a look underlining all the implications of that statement. Danny gave a knowing expression, and shook his head. "Don't plan on it, Paulina. I'm only here for a few more days."

Her face fell slightly, and her eyes turned cold. "Fine, whatever. Do what you like. I'm out of here." With that, Paulina walked away, leaving Danny to wonder at what he ever saw in her.

XxXxX

Maddie Fenton paced anxiously in the kitchen at Fentonworks. When Danny walked in the door, she rushed at him and nearly tackled him with a hug. "Oh, honey, I was so worried about you! Did that ghost find you?"

"Mom, I'm flipping twenty-four, I can take care of myself," Danny grumbled. There was no possible—well, no _probable_ way she could have known about the attack, so he feigned ignorance and asked, "What ghost?"

"Oh, you don't _know_? That box-obsessed ghost, our test specimen—_it escaped!_ How, we'll never know—your father is in the lab trying to figure it out—but, anyway, who knows what kind of box-themed havoc it's wreaking on the city! Luckily, some fellow ghosthunters are coming over tonight to help us work on our new weapon—they can help us recapture it..."

Danny had tuned out when she said "box-obsessed", and said, "Okay, sure...I'll be in my room..."

XxXxX

_Thirty-four...thirty-five...thirty-six..._ Danny switched hands at forty and continued his regimen of one-armed chin-ups. After that Presidential Fitness Test in his freshman year, he'd learned the value of cultivating his natural abilities, and after renouncing his powers, he'd especially had to rely on his own strength, speed, and stamina. He also did his best thinking on the chin-up bar, and boy, did he have a lot to mull over...

_Twenty-four...twenty-five...unintentional—an accident...twenty-eight...twenty-nine...guilty for the wrong reasons...thirty-two...thirty-three..._

His parents were not doing a lot for the city in terms of actually eradicating the ghosts. Granted, they couldn't strictly be blamed for this—they _were_ getting up there in years by now, after all... Who were these "fellow ghosthunters" his mother had mentioned? They clearly weren't doing so well themselves, but Danny couldn't really judge, seeing as how he had never met them. Plus, the problem remained of getting the few ghosts they had captured back to the Ghost Zone, now that the portal was gone... He dropped from the bar to the floor, and started doing push-ups.

_One...two...three...was it your intention to cause her death?... six... seven... eight... nine... you can't deny who you are, Danny... thirteen...fourteen... I can't help you much longer... seventeen...eighteen..._

If the town really was to be kept safe, the vast majority of the more malevolent ghosts needed to be rounded up and sent home, which brought up its own problem—namely, who was going to do it? The few ghosthunters around here were only human after all, and needed things like food, rest, and breaks from the madness of fighting all the time. Either the town needed more hunters, or someone else entirely, someone with a lot of endurance, heightened abilities, a means to locate ghosts or at least tell when they were nearby...someone focused, determined, motivated, someone like...

...Really, someone like Danny Phantom.

_Guilty...wrong reasons...twenty-six... twenty-seven... you can't pretend any longer... tragedy(on Friday, the sixteenth of December, an eighteen-year-old girl was killed)... thirty-four... thirty-five...only deserve blame if you did it on purpose (parents were unavailable for comment)... forty... forty-one...the town needs a protector..._

Well, the town did need a protector. If the Spectors and the Ravers and all the other, worse ghosts were left to their own devices, they'd spread until no town anywhere was safe. Not to mention that the few well-intentioned ghosts would probably be driven out along with their more malicious brethren by the well-meaning but overly militant ghosthunters like his parents.

_Sixty-three... sixty-four... I'm you, Danny... sixty-six...sixty-seven...sixty-eight... I've done what you can do (tell them, promise me you'll tell...)... set me free...set yourself free..._

At seventy-five, his arms gave out. He wearily got up and flopped onto his bed, panting. Now that he didn't even have the mindless repetition of physical exercise to distract him slightly, his mind was free to dwell on what had happened today. The _Box Ghost _had basically told him to suck it up and get over himself, and if the Box Ghost could figure that out, maybe Danny should think about it.

He tried to argue that it would be an insult to Jazz's memory—but then, he hadn't even make good on his promise to tell his parents his secret, so scratch that. He tried to point out that he'd be hunted down by his grudge-wielding parents, but when had he cared?

What it really boiled down to was that Danny was afraid. He was scared to once again take up the responsibility for lives other than his own. He was afraid to admit that he was wrong—and most of all, he was afraid to face up to the fact that for the past eight years, he'd been lying to himself. But then, one of Vlad's annoying maxims dredged itself up from his subconscious: "_The weak use fear as an excuse to give up. The strong use it as a reason not to._"

"Okay, okay, fine!" Danny burst out to the empty room. "I'll...I'll do it."

He sat up on his bed and looked himself in the mirror. "I'll do it for you, Jazz."

Danny closed his eyes and concentrated hard. The change didn't come as easily as it used to, but that was to be expected. He gritted his teeth, and focused, _focused_, _focused_, until...

The room faded...

XxXxX

_Danny found himself where his dream left off: an ethereal facsimile of the Fentons' basement lab. This time, though, the enclosure that once held the Box Ghost was empty and the power was shut down. Lying in the middle of the floor, apparently too weak to get up, was his sixteen-year-old ghost self._

_Danny rushed over. Was it just him, or did Phantom look...faded? He was lying on his back with one hand draped over where his heart would be, and breathing shallowly. _

Hey, _Danny whispered. Phantom's eyes fluttered open. They looked less green than they had... **Hey, **Phantom weakly murmured. **You came back.**_

I've figured some things out. I was afraid to admit it before, but...they need me. And I need you. Don't fade out on me, or—or anything...

_What the--? Phantom was starting to look more substantial, more—there—and his eyes were beginning to regain their old vibrance. **You really mean it?**_

I mean it. I want to be a hero again. We can do it—together. _Danny held out a hand. Phantom looked at it, then looked Danny in the eyes, and smiled._

_**It's time.** With that, Phantom reached up and grasped Danny by the hand, but—he went through—he went _in_—Danny gasped at the coldness—ice was flooding his body, but it felt so good—Phantom felt—a heartbeat—he had a body again—a flash, then they were—they—_he**was**_—_

XxXxX

Danny Phantom opened his eyes. He, at some point, must have fallen off his bed, because he was on the floor with no memory of how he had gotten there. He stood up, checked himself in the mirror—and nearly fell down again.

Danny, in his ghost form, looked sixteen years old.

He had known that his dreams showed his ghost half as sixteen, but he had thought that was a metaphor—or something. What the heck was going on?

Then, a memory from the morning before rose up: his parents, explaining ghost physiology. "As ghosts gain more experience and become more powerful, their forms mature with them. In other words, they gain age through experience," his mother had said. Was this the case with him? By not using his powers for eight years, had he permanently stunted his growth?

More importantly, did that matter now? The point was, he had a job to do, and he was going to do it. In fact, Danny thought, smiling wryly, it gave him a cast-iron alibi to keep his identity hidden. If no one could guess his secret when he appeared the same age, height, weight, and build, no one could possibly figure it out now.

So, no more excuses. Danny had business to take care of.

A/N: Yay! Danny's gonna be sexy again! Oh, and before I forget, if you were wondering why Phantom never spoke up during Danny's internal debate, it was because he was beginning to fade away like he warned in Chapter 5... I tried to heavily imply that, but my beta said it confused her... Review and tell me how I did!


	8. Karma's Cruelty

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: I changed my penname. I was getting sick of the "v2" thing, because it looked stupid... But I still am your beloved random-idiot-v2 deep down inside...at least until I get sick of that, too.

Disclaimer: Save our Danny! Who, unfortunately, does not belong to me.

**Chapter 8:** **Karma's Cruelty**

_Everybody's watching you now_

_Everybody waits for you now_

_What happens next?_

_What happens next?_ –Switchfoot, _Dare You to Move_

XxXxX

"Why are we walking to Grandpa Jack's house?" Diana Foley-Gray asked, in that adorably inquisitive way that three-year-olds have.

"It's good for you, that's why," Tucker answered amicably. Then he half-turned to Valerie, and muttered, "Why _are_ we walking, anyway? We crossed the Elmerton-Amity line three blocks back."

"Because the car is out of fuel—we need to borrow some when we're over—, and because the glider can't hold three people. Therefore, we walk," Val muttered back, though her nervous habit of drumming her fingers on her beloved FG-4200 laser-sighted ecto-charged nuclear cell semi-automatic belied her confident attitude. Tucker rolled his eyes.

The sight of the three of them walking down the street, all holding hands, could almost have made it seem like they were a normal non-ghosthunting family on an evening walk. However, this quaint picture was distorted by Valerie's constant stroking of her holstered ecto-pistols, and Tucker's obvious anxiety evident in his whispered litany of the squares and cubes of all the prime numbers. Diana, with a nervous parent on either side of her, was blithely and innocently skipping on every other step, not a care in the world.

"Did you remember the notes on the new glider's efficiency and performance?" Valerie asked Tucker. "And the extrapolated ghost activity hot spot maps?" Tucker gestured towards the PDA strapped to his hip like a weapon.

"Of course! Did you bring the bean dip? You know how Jack likes it," Tucker responded. Valerie shook her head. "Ah, well," Tucker sighed. "Now we have to deal with his cooking." Valerie suppressed a shudder.

"Why so jittery?" Tucker added.

"About Jack's cooking? Do you have to ask?"

"No, I mean jittery in general."

"I don't know," Valerie replied uneasily. "I get this weird feeling—" She stopped abruptly, jerking her head around to look behind them. "—Like we're being—" She whipped around again and unholstered and fired her gun in one smooth motion at something fluttering in the shadows between two buildings. "—Watched." She stepped forward to glance at the spot where her round had hit.

"Mommy?" Diana quavered, clutching Tucker's free hand tightly. "What's wrong?"

Val turned slowly to face them. "Paper," she said by way of explanation, holding up an errant copy of the Amity Examiner. Each page had a smoldering hole through its center.

"A little paranoid, are we, Val?" Tucker joked. Val scowled. "You'd have been thanking me if it was a ghost," she insisted stubbornly.

"True. But it wasn't," Tucker pointed out.

Valerie strode forward a few paces to rejoin them, then whipped around to stare behind them again. "_What?_" Tucker asked exasperatedly.

"I _definitely_ heard something," Valerie asserted.

"I think you're just caffeinated," Tucker retorted, but he kept a careful grip on his daughter all the same. Val didn't move.

"Mommy? I don't see anything," Diana asked, confused.

"Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there." Valerie inched forward, facing back the way they'd come, as if something was sneaking up on them. She sniffed the air, cocked an ear, and then shrugged. "Gone, whatever it was."

A shriek rent the air behind her. Valerie whirled in time to see some enormous green fanged _monster_ bat her husband away from Diana like a fly. Val had perhaps a fraction of a second to process this before Diana screamed again as the ghost raked scythe-like claws towards her—to meet empty air, for she was not there anymore. What looked to Valerie like a black and white blur had streaked across her line of vision to whisk Diana away a hair's-breadth from those claws—a black and white blur, moreover, that resolved itself into perhaps the _last_ person she'd _ever_ want to touch her only daughter.

"**_You!_**" Valerie howled with rage at the familiar visage of Amity Park's legendary ghost boy—no longer legend.

XxXxX

"**_You!_**" Danny heard Valerie's shout, but he didn't have time for anything else—he had his hands full. Literally _and_ figuratively. Clutching the small girl that he rightfully assumed was Valerie's daughter, he hurtled down the street with the Raver in hot pursuit.

"_Now_ you're gonna get it, _punk_!" it bellowed in impotent rage, gouging chunks out of the asphalt as it raced after Danny. This close to sundown, very few people were out on the streets, which was good. Danny wouldn't need to hold back.

However, he'd have a lot of negotiating to do when Valerie caught up to him.

XxXxX

When his daughter was taken out of the ghost's reach seconds before she'd have been snatched, Tucker almost collapsed with relief. Then he saw why his wife was screaming bloody murder.

Danny Phantom had Diana in his arms.

Tucker blinked. He smacked himself across his face, looked harder, and blinked again. No. It couldn't be. It _couldn't_.

Could it?

Logically, Tucker knew that it certainly wasn't impossible that his friend had returned to Amity Park, but he nevertheless was ill-prepared to accept it. If Danny were back, he'd have told Tucker. If Danny were back, he'd _know_. Not to mention, he'd definitely look older. Unless...

By now, Valerie had pulled out the glider and zoomed off in pursuit of her child and her abductor, leaving Tucker to catch up. Typical. She knew he hated running. Especially when he had brooding to do.

Danny would look older, unless...he died?

To even his own surprise, Tucker began to run faster.

XxXxX

Danny looked over his shoulder to see that Valerie was catching up. Determined not to let the situation get out of hand (and to give the right impression), he spun in midair and blasted the Raver with an energy beam—_hard_. He held the girl tightly around the waist with his other arm.

The Raver twisted in mid-stride and managed to take the blast in its shoulder—Danny'd been aiming for its face—and continued charging. "S'that all you got!" it roared at Danny. "I can take ya!"

"Maybe, but can you take _her_?" Danny asked, stopping. The Raver, confused and wary, turned to receive an ectogrenade in the face from an irate Valerie. There was a small detonation that put it out of the fight for good. Danny whistled appreciatively. Valerie had gotten some upgrades.

He lowered himself to the ground and gently let the little girl go. She backed a few steps away, regarding him with a mixture of nervousness, awe, and gratitude.

"Thank you, Mr. Ghost Boy," she said very clearly.

"Anytime," he said, and winked at her. She smiled, and then ran over to where Valerie had just jumped from her glider to retrieve her. "Mommy, mommy! Guess what?"

Valerie snatched her up into her arms, hugging her and sobbing, "My Diana, my angel..." Then she noticed Danny just standing there, watching. "Phantom!" she yelled at him, apparently incensed that he was on hand for a rare display of emotion from her. She pulled out her gun, advancing on him. "I thought you'd be smart enough to stay away. Guess I was wrong."

Danny shrugged. "Guess you were."

"How _dare_ you touch my child?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Danny retorted, still in an amicable tone of voice, but this time with a bit of steel behind it, "would you prefer I have ravished her and eaten her alive like Twinkletoes over there?" He gestured towards the smoking crater that remained of the Raver.

Valerie slammed him across the face with the butt of her gun. He took it. "You _bastard_," she spat, white and shaking.

"Hey—little pitchers," Danny reminded her, painfully rubbing his cheek.

"Wait!" A burly, masculine figure ran up, panting. Danny didn't recognize him until he saw the tattoo on his collarbone—the quadratic formula. Tucker had gotten that tattoo in their sophomore year, to the wrath of his parents. So, apparently, Tucker and Valerie had hooked up after Danny left—he couldn't say he was surprised.

"Valerie, wait!" Tucker gasped. "What are you doing?"

"Ridding the town of a disease," Valerie snapped, aiming her gun at Danny's heart. "Say goodbye, ghost scum—"

Tucker, to Valerie's apparent astonishment, put out a hand and pushed the barrel of her gun down to point at the ground. "Go," he told Danny. "And thanks."

Danny winked at him and threw an ironic salute to Val. He phased through the ground and left.

Valerie was left staring at an empty patch of street, her jaw clenching and her hands trembling with ire. She turned her head slowly towards Tucker. If looks could maim, he would be able to fit in a matchbox by now. Tucker, for his part, was still looking at the empty air where Danny had been, his mind whirling.

"Tucker..."

"Later," he muttered, jerking his head towards Diana, who looked mystified. "Mommy...?" she began hesitantly, but Valerie scooped her up and shushed her.

"Let's just get to Grandpa Jack's house, okay?" Val whispered.

Tucker pointed. Apparently their little detour had taken them farther than they'd thought. "We're there."

XxXxX

Valerie knocked on the Fentons' door, avoiding the doorbell like the plague. She'd learned that lesson the hard way ever since she was almost hit by a heat-seeking missile. After a few moments, the door opened, and Maddie Fenton appeared.

"Hey guys! Did you make it here okay?" she inquired affably.

"Just a little ghost trouble, but nothing worth reporting," Tucker rushed to reassure her, earning him a narrowed glare from Valerie.

She casually tried to get in, "Actually, Maddie, there _is_ something worth reporting. Ph—"

"Grandma Maddie!" Diana laughed and jumped into Maddie's waiting arms. Maddie hugged her, then set her down and told Valerie, "I'm sure it can wait until after dinner, hon. You won't believe who's here!"

"Who?" Valerie asked as they walked in, but Maddie just grinned and shook her head, indicating it to be a surprise. Val grabbed Tucker by the arm as he moved to go past her, and hissed in his ear, "Oh, and _don't_ think you've gotten out of telling me what that was about back there, _dear_ husband." Tucker gulped.

Ahead of them, Maddie called out, "Dear! Dinner!" The two Foley-Grays frowned.

"Who's she talking to? Us?" Tucker asked, as they walking into the kitchen to see Jack carving a large ham with a hacksaw, Diana watching with fascination.

"What is this, a party?" a voice asked from behind them in the living room they'd just come from. Following it came a man in heavily patched jeans and a faded black AC-DC shirt, with messy black hair and icy blue eyes—eyes that Valerie and Tucker found hauntingly familiar. "Oh. I guess it _is_ a party," he added.

Valerie's jaw dropped so far that it was in danger of falling off her face. Tucker looked both astounded and slightly skeptical.

"Danny!" Valerie gasped in amazement. "Oh my _god_!" She rushed forward and hugged him.

Danny gave a small "oomph!" as she tackled him, and Tucker saw him wince slightly, like she hit some bruises. He grinned, and weakly addressed both Val, who was crushing his ribs with a bear hug, and Tucker, "You haven't changed a bit, now, have you?"

"Same razor wit as ever, I see," Tucker laughed.

"I can't believe it! You're back!" Valerie excitedly exclaimed as she let him go to hug Tucker. "You, just—wow. You really changed."

Meanwhile, Tucker whispered into Danny's ear, "What the heck, man?" Danny, fully understanding, hissed back, "Not now." They broke apart, and Danny spotted Diana. "Hey now," he winked at the two of them, "got busy?" Valerie blushed, and Tuck rolled his eyes.

Diana looked a little shy, so Danny, holding a chair with one hand, got down on a knee so he was at her eye level. "Hey," he prompted gently, "what's your name?"

"Diana," she mumbled, looking down at the floor.

"Diana...that's a nice name," Danny smiled. "My name is Danny—you can call me..." He trailed off and looked at Val for a cue –Val mouthed something— "...Uncle Danny. Is that okay with you?"

She nodded quietly. "Okay," he said, and winked at her.

XxXxX

Dinner that evening was an...interesting affair, to say the least. The six of them sat at the Fenton family table, each doing their very best to render Jack's ham fit for consumption. Tucker, ever the carnivore, picked up his entire slice with his fork, not even attempting to cut it, and ripped off bite-size chunks with his teeth alone. Valerie used her pocket laser cutter. Danny, glancing around furtively, surreptitiously phased his knife into the center of his piece, and worked from there. Diana just ate potatoes and carrots, lucky toddler that she was. Maddie borrowed Valerie's laser cutter. Jack simply shoved his whole slice into his mouth and swallowed without chewing.

"I _told_ you not to use the Emergency Ham," Maddie muttered. At that, everyone agreed he or she was full.

"Mommy, may I be 'scused?" Diana asked. Valerie nodded, and she scooted out from the table. Danny watched her go.

"Cute kid, really adorable. No idea where she got it from," he added, eliciting a playful punch from Valerie. "Hey, I'm gonna need that arm. Seriously, though, when did you two hook up?"

"About right after you left, actually," Tucker said. "Val and I would always run into each other at the gym and, well, what with my gorgeous body and all...—Ouch!"

Valerie smacked him upside the head for that last comment, then continued where he left off, "We started dating during senior year, and then we both got accepted into M.I.T. Your parents really helped with that, they had some sweet connections with the paranormal physics engineering department—that was when the ghosts started to spread out in earnest, and more and more people were beginning to wise up. In our junior year there, Tucker proposed to me at a Halloween party."

"I was dressed as Boba Fett," Tucker said reminiscently. Danny snorted.

An awkward silence descended. Finally, Tucker burst out, "Alright! You know we're thinking it, I know we're thinking it, no one wants to admit it, and I might as well be the one to ask. What did you do and where have you been for the past eight years?"

Danny nervously rubbed the back of his neck, a habit he'd never been able to break. "It's, ah, not very interesting," he began, but the other four pressed him for the whole story.

He hated to lie even a little, but he was forced to make up a plausible guilt-shock related excuse for running away. The rest was all true. He told about his month on the road before turning to Vlad. He glossed over the six months he spent there, preferring not to have to answer awkward questions. The whole time, the force of Tucker's stare felt almost tangible to him—everyone else accepted his story.

He continued, describing how he spent the next two years alternately being picked up by and running away from foster care services until his eighteenth birthday. He then faked his identification to join the military, until the person he'd impersonated tried to join up himself. For the past couple of years, he'd been on the run from the government and trying to get a job. His lack of a high school diploma made that hard, though.

"So, I came back because I wanted to see if I could go back and graduate," Danny finished, looking at them all. "Not to mention letting you all know I'm still alive and whatnot..."

He was interrupted by the doorbell ringing, and the subsequent whine of the house's weapons system powering up. "Who could that be at this hour?" Maddie wondered aloud. The sun had long set, and the streets were now taboo for humans.

Jack got up from the table and, grabbing the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick, announced, "I'll be back..."

XxXxX

Eduard Freichscho shifted nervously outside the door to Fentonworks. It had taken him weeks of scrounging through library newspaper archives and bleeding Google dry of any pertinent information before he found that the bumbling ghost-hunting family had never left Amity Park. Luckily, that same search for information had provided him with a feasible cover story to get them to let him stay for a few days. That would be all he needed. However, he was still nervous. Was he even certain of the sanity of these people?

His musings were cut short when the door opened to reveal a large man standing in the doorframe. Eduard remembered him as Jack Fenton. The man was holding a decidedly unfriendly-seeming bat in one hand. "I have twenty seconds to disarm the giant laser gun pointed at your face. Convince me to push the button, _fast_," Jack threatened, pointing up towards a lethal-looking antenna-like protrusion over the door, which was indeed facing somewhere near his head. Eduard gulped.

"I am a member of the Ghosthunters' Society of America, part of a sub-committee to present a prestigious award to the closest family of the late Jasmine Fenton," he said, almost too quickly to be intelligible. Of course, he was no one of the sort, but Jack Fenton did not know that.

Jack frowned, and pressed an unseen button somewhere on the inside of the wall, out of Eduard's line of vision. "Keep talking," he indicated for Eduard to go on.

"As you well know, the award will be presented at a ceremony on Saturday. Due to a misunderstanding with the schedule, I ended up arriving a few days early. Unfortunately..." Eduard gestured behind him at the street, where numerous glowing eyes observed from the shadowed areas. Jack, noticing this, pulled out an ecto-pistol and fired off a few rounds. Screeches came from many directions, and Jack shouted, "Clear off!"

Eduard took heart from this, and continued, "Well, as you can see, the local ghosts took a disliking to me, and my car was, ah, disassembled, to put it politely, and I need lodging for a few nights. I was hoping you could find it in your heart to accommodate me. I'd provide compensation, of course..."

Jack mulled this over for a while, making Eduard even jitterier by the second, and finally consented, "You're a creepy guy, but if the ghosts don't like you, you're a friend of mine. Come on in."

A/N: Bwahaha! Review! Oh, and Chapter 8 is officially the halfway point of Free Spirit (unless I revise my outline _again_). I'd just like to thank everyone who made this possible! All you awesome reviewers, Butch Hartman for giving us such fun characters to play with, and especially GreenEggsandSam, my awesomely cool beta and best friend! Thanks, everyone!


	9. Somebody Up There Loathes You

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I definitely had to get in "the zone" for this chapter. That being said, Chapter Ten may take a while—yup, I had to revise my outline again. Sorry.

Disclaimer: If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not telling you...

**Chapter 9:** **Somebody Up There Loathes You**

So what in the world am I supposed to do?  
I never did anything to you  
So can't you find something else to do?—Simple Plan, _God Must Hate Me_

XxXxX

After Jack left the table to go check the door, the conversation resumed. "You're going to go back and get your diploma?" Valerie asked. "That's great! Of course, you could always just write a memoir and sell it. Yeesh."

"Nah," Danny said. "My life's pretty boring."

Tucker hid his reflexive snort behind a fake sneeze, with some difficulty. Danny kicked him underneath the table, and moved to change the subject. Jerking his head towards Diana, who was playing rocket-builder with some shiny metal pots and pans, he asked, "So, you like the extended family thing? I'm Uncle Danny; they're Grandpa and Grandma Fenton..."

"Well, since Val and I are both only children, we figured Diana deserved a bigger family. Besides," Tucker grinned, tousling Danny's hair jokingly, "You're as good as a brother to me."

"Thanks, I feel loved, but don't touch my hair, got it?" Danny quipped. Valerie laughed.

Maddie jumped as she heard the door close, along with two sets of footsteps. "Who...?" she wondered aloud, but at that moment, Jack walked in with a total stranger.

The four adults blinked almost simultaneously. "Umm..." Tucker began.

"Guys, this is Mister..." Jack trailed off and looked at the man for his name.

"John. John Cryer," the man filled in for him, smiling in a way that made the atmosphere tenser rather than more relaxed.

"Right, okay," Jack continued, "He's from the GSA's awards committee. He's stranded here early for the ceremony on Saturday, so I offered to let him stay with us. Is that okay?"

Maddie squinted at him. "Well, I suppose...You can sleep in Jazz's old room, I guess. What do you think, Danny?"

Danny shrugged. "Whatever. It's your house."

XxXxX

Eduard was glad he'd done his research on the members of the GSA. The real John Cryer had retired two weeks ago and the GSA official website had not posted the information yet, so if the Fentons became suspicious and looked his alias up, he wouldn't blow his cover. Of course, on Saturday they'd want to know why the real committee members didn't know him, but he'd be gone by then. If all went according to plan, that is.

Jack Fenton's wife (Maddie, he believed) seemed mostly convinced by his story. The other, younger couple seemed more wary of him, particularly the woman. But then, she struck him as the constantly wary type.

The last young adult at the table—the dark-haired, light-blue-eyed man—looked at him curiously, snapped his fingers a few times, and asked, "Have we met?"

"Ah, no, not to my knowledge," Eduard replied, maybe a little too quickly. Shoot, if any of them recognized him as Freakshow from the last time his circus had pulled into town, his carefully crafted soap bubble of false identification could pop right in his face. Still, he wasn't in costume or make-up—that was something.

Eduard settled into a chair at the far end of the table as the conversation resumed. He'd always been adept at listening while convincingly pretending not to.

"So," Blue Eyes was saying, "could someone please explain this whole award thing?"

The other man—the dark one with glasses—spoke, "I forgot—you haven't been around..."

"After your sister died," Maddie told him gently (_Blue Eyes is the missing Fenton boy_, Eduard filed away for future reference), "her will directed that some of her personal diaries be submitted to various paranormal science journals. Apparently, she'd been conducting research studies on ghost behavior while we were hunting ghosts, and she even had an unfinished thesis going. The editors of those science journals were quite impressed and recommended her work to the Ghosthunters' Society of America as merit-worthy.

"On Saturday, they're going to present us with her posthumous award for Groundbreaking Research in Spectral Psychology. Isn't that wonderful, Danny?"

"That's—that's great!" Blue Eyes said, blinking, like he was pleasantly surprised, but Eduard thought he detected a note of submerged consternation. "What are they going to do with the rest of her diaries?"

Maddie smiled. "The rest, sweetie, Jazz left to _you._"

XxXxX

Danny wondered if he was coming down with something. For the past several minutes, his head had been pounding like someone was driving spikes into his skull, he'd been sweating really badly, and he felt strangely hot and chilled at the same time, as if he were running a fever. The walls felt like they were closing in on him, and he felt unnaturally exposed—as if he suddenly and without warning had developed acute claustrophobia. He'd never really been claustrophobic, though—small spaces lose their terror when one can simply phase out of them. His breathing sounded ragged and harsh in his ears, and he was pretty sure everyone had to be able to hear his heart hammering against his ribs.

Danny felt hyper-aware of everything going on around him: the ticking of the kitchen clock; the staccato clinks and rattles of his father washing the dishes by hand; Tucker's continuous looks at him as if to reassure himself that Danny was still there; and the shifty way that Cryer person was glancing around the kitchen—as if he were studying all possible escape routes for later reference. The man glanced at _him_, and Danny's headache spiked again; he winced.

Danny wasn't wondering if he was coming down with something—he was _hoping_ that that was the case. He didn't quite feel like considering any alternative explanations.

It didn't help that Danny absolutely could not shake off the persistent, nagging feeling that he recognized that John Cryer man; big nose, beady eyes, bald—why couldn't he place him? It was irritating Danny to no end, and he was determined to figure it out.

Valerie and Tucker had the blueprints to their new glider out on the table. "And here, we figure a sensor array would be the most efficiently placed..." Val was explaining to the Fentons and pointing at a set of blueprints, when a heart-stoppingly loud and blaring "BREEE-BREEE-BREEE-BREEE-BREEE...!" began to sound throughout the house.

"Ghost security breach!" Jack bellowed. "Evasive action!" All the lights in the house turned neon red, bathing everything in an eerie carmine glow.

Valerie whipped out an ectopistol and shrieked, "_Where is **Diana**?_"

The red lights burned into Danny's eyes and set another series of shooting pains through his head, not helped in any way by the screeching of the alarms. He winced and rubbed his temples. A cold panic clenched in his gut, which ironically had nothing to do with the alarms, because there was no ghost. Right now, the only ones he knew of were at the very outermost range of his senses, which meant that they were at least two blocks away. Apparently, Tucker figured it out, too.

"The sensor scans show negative!" he shouted over the alarms, brandishing his PDA. He didn't let anyone get a very close look, though, and Danny knew why. There probably _was_ one ghost showing up on the scan: him. Maddie and Valerie meanwhile ran down to the basement.

Danny jerked around and hurriedly cast his gaze all over the kitchen, almost hyperventilating with terror. He had _no earthly idea_ what could possibly be the source of the irrational dread that was rising up into his throat and threatening to choke him. His head pounded; he felt hot and shaky; his skin crawled. He whipped around, and his eyes fell on...the GSA member. Cryer's skin looked almost white, and his eyes reflected the bloody glow of the warning lights—and abruptly, it clicked. Danny realized where he had seen him before.

The man was Freakshow, formerly ringmaster of the Circus Gothica—which no longer operated, seeing as how his employees ("thralls" would be a better word) did not care to keep the show going. Freakshow himself had been sent to prison ten years ago, but evidently he had either escaped or been freed.

Neither scenario boded well in Danny's mind. Suddenly, his panic attack had begun to make sense. Sometimes, in the past, his ghost side had subconsciously warned him of dangers that he had been unable to recognize. Obviously, this was the case now. However, Danny wondered what other effects Freakshow's presence would have on his newly integrated psyche...

XxXxX

The alarm and lights cut out, and Valerie and Maddie emerged from the lab with a tearful Diana in tow. "Spilled a tube of ectoplasm samples on a sensor plate and tripped the alarm," Maddie explained.

"I'm sorry!" Diana sobbed. Obviously, the loud noise had terrified her out of her wits. Valerie shushed her.

"Have we learned something? We _never_ touch lab stuff, got it? It's just a miracle that you weren't _hurt_, sweetie..."

Tucker hugged her and said, "Hey, it's okay, it's all fixed now..." He settled back down to keep reviewing their tech notes when he glanced over at Danny. Danny didn't look so hot—he was pretty pale and trembly, and kept twitchily glancing at the windows, the door, his parents, and Mr. Cryer, who Tucker was still unsure was a GSA member, seeing as how he had produced no verifiable identification.

Tucker caught his eye and mouthed, _What's wrong?_

Danny, wide-eyed, shook his head and jerked it towards the other adults at the table. _Not here_, he mouthed. He glanced at his parents quickly, then pointed a finger at Tucker, then himself, and then out the window, and held up two fingers. Tucker took this to mean, _Meet me outside in two minutes._

"Guys? You with us?" Valerie inquired down the length of the table, and Tucker jolted as he realized she'd just asked him a question. As he frantically tried to reorganize his thoughts, however, she continued to address Danny. "Hey, are you okay? You don't look very well."

Danny, still pretty pale and shaky, got up and stammered, "You know, I don't _feel _very well. I think I may be coming down with something—I'm gonna go outside for some air..." Casting a meaningful glance at Tucker, he grabbed his jacket and all but ran for the door.

Jack yelled after him, "Stay close to the house! You know how those spooks like to come around at all hours of the night!"

Tucker waited a few minutes, long enough for everyone to fully turn their attention to the blueprints, then got up and announced, "I'm going to go check on Danny..."

XxXxX

Danny leaned against the cool bricks of the house's side wall, and wearily massaged his temples with his fingertips. What he really wanted was for the whole goddamned world to just _shut up_ and leave him alone for a few hours.

He'd spent the better part of the day reacquainting himself with the feel of his ghost powers, and then having to utilize them for a few hours beating up ghosts and getting tossed around in the process. _Then_ he had to he had to bluff his way out of a confrontation with an irate Valerie, _then_ he starts having some idiopathic panic episode, and just because fate felt like giving him the finger, let's have his parents randomly decide to let Freakshow, of all people, in his house, and really, he had a migraine coming on like nobody's business.

Of course, it didn't help that Freakshow's presence was dredging up some very painful memories for Danny. Well, "memories" may not be the best word—most of the two days he'd spent under the ringmaster's control was a hazy indistinct blur, punctuated with snapshot images from his lucid moments.

_The haze was red...Not bright red, or even blood red, but the sort of dark-purplish nothing-red that one sees behind one's eyelids...Red haze...He couldn't see anything beyond it—but wait, he could see something...Sam was there, and even the haze was clearing out a bit. She said something, she looked scared and he tried to answer her, tried to comfort her, but the red haze was coming back, trapping him inside his own head...There was nothing else, just nothingness...The nothingness cleared again, and he saw Sam and Tucker, pleading with him... "Sam? Tucker?" he tried to warn them, "I-I—" –can't fight it, but his last words were lost in the red haze that rushed back to engulf him..._

"—Danny?" Tucker's voice jolted him out of his reverie. "What are you doing out here?" Though Tucker did know what Danny was doing, he merely asked for the benefit of anyone who might be listening through the open door.

"Brooding, how about you?" Danny casually fielded the question with sarcastic bluntness. Tucker quietly closed the door behind him, walked over to Danny, leaned against the opposite wall, and folded his arms.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well, what?"

"Well, don't expect me not to be slightly miffed that you ran away, avoided us for almost ten years, then just randomly showed up in time to save my daughter—thanks, by the way—and expected me to just take it!" Tucker exploded. He clearly had been bursting to say this. "Okay, you don't _call_ us for eight years, that's really nice! Very _thoughtful_ of you to come and see us when you got back in town, by the way..." Danny let him rant on for another few minutes until he blew himself out of steam.

"Tucker, I'm sorry," Danny said, simply. Tucker glowered at him for a minute, then his expression softened and he pulled Danny into a one-armed hug. Danny blinked and swallowed hard against the lump rising in his throat. When the two best friends let each other go, Tucker had to duck his head, claiming that his contact lenses were acting up.

"I suppose you want the whole story," Danny said ruefully.

"You'd better believe it," Tucker replied.

Danny swiftly filled him in on what really happened with Vlad, his encounter with the Box Ghost ("Julia," Tucker snickered), the Raver attacks on Paulina and Diana, and the odd unconformity between himself and his ghostly manifestation.

"You never do things halfway, do you?" Tucker gave a dark chuckle. "You can't just come back; you've got to come back with a _bang_!"

"There's something else you should know," Danny warned. Putting a finger to his lips, he pointed to a window into the kitchen, indicating for Tucker to look in at the adults at the table. Tucker shook his head.

"They'll see me in the window," he hissed. Danny rolled his eyes and grabbed Tucker firmly by the arm, letting the light diffuse through them, and rendering them unseen.

"_Now_ they won't," he muttered back. Together, they huddled close to the window and peered in. Danny pointed, and then mentally smacked himself when he realized that Tucker couldn't see his arm. "Second chair on the left," he murmured.

"The GSA guy?" Tucker asked? They ducked back down under the window and Danny let the both of them become visible again. "What about him?"

"Do you recognize him?"

"Of course I recognize him, Danny; I'm merely playing dumb for your benefit," Tucker quipped. "What are you getting at?"

"Would you know him if I said he was sent to prison ten years ago on several counts of grand larceny, and that he used to wear red contacts and white stage makeup?" Danny asked.

Tucker frowned and peeked in the window again. Danny jerked him back down immediately, but luckily no one had been watching the window that time. Tucker closed his eyes and muttered to himself, "Hmm...that nose...I know that nose. Red contacts...hmm..." He continued in this vein for a while, and then abruptly snapped his fingers and gasped, "The guy! He's the guy...from the circus...with the thing. The one that Sam almost disemboweled, and then there was you with the red eyes—that guy. Yeah." Tucker thought for another moment, then started laughing. "And he's in your house, man! That's...that's just priceless!"

"You know, taking the problem _seriously_ might help!" Danny snapped. Tucker stopped laughing, but he still kept chuckling ironically in little bursts.

"What problem?" he asked. "He doesn't know you're the ghost kid. Otherwise, he probably would have, I don't know, challenged you to a duel or something—some weird revenge scheme. And even if he did know you were the ghost kid, what can he do about it now? His staff's been broken for, like, ever."

Tucker's arguments made sense, but they couldn't abolish Danny's mental image of Sam, screaming as she was falling down towards the ground hundreds of feet below... Danny ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe Tucker was right. Maybe he _was_ overreacting.

"You coming in?"

Danny looked up. "Yeah, okay."

In his mind, he couldn't help adding, _But I have a bad feeling about this..._

A/N: My Star Wars obsession compelled me to put that last line in. (Jade rolls her eyes) Once again, I humbly apologize for the long wait—one month! Wow. Yeesh. Oh, and to all the people who know who John Cryer is and are rolling their eyes at me: It's not my fault! I was in an unoriginal mood. Chapter Ten is at least one third of the way done as I write this author's note, so I will try to have it up much sooner than a month from now. Review!


	10. Hero's Welcome

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Be happy for me! I got Chapter Ten written in record time! Unfortunately, I don't know about Chapter 11...it may take a while. Oh, and from last chapter, I guess I'll tell you: John Cryer is that name of the voice actor who did Freakshow's voice... I was being unoriginal.

Disclaimer: One day, Butch, you and your lawyers will let your guard down, and I will steal the rights to all things Danny right out from under your collective nose. And then I will laugh.

**Chapter 10: Hero's Welcome**

"It's tough to do a good deed. Let's look at your professional good deed-doers, your Lone Rangers, your Supermen, your Batmen, your Spidermen. They're all wearing disguises, masks over their faces, secret identities. They don't want people to know who they are. Too much aggravation." –Jerry Seinfeld

XxXxX

The house was quiet that night, which was ironic, because the Fentons were housing more people than they had in a decade. Valerie and Tucker were asleep on the couch with Diana snuggling peacefully between them. Jack and Maddie were actually sleeping in their bed for once. Their other houseguest, whatever his real name was—Danny didn't know or care anymore—had retired to Jazz's room.

The only light in the house was a faint glow around the cracks of Danny's door that leaked into the upstairs hallway. He was up reading over the journals that Jazz left in his care. One lay open on the bed; the rest stayed neatly stacked in a black plastic bin with the label, "Touch and Die."

Danny turned a page. Jazz was such an organizational freak that she'd typed up her whole diary—every single entry ever written—and printed out the pages and sorted them into neatly labeled binders. The one Danny was reading was labeled, "Entries Pertaining to Danny." Most of the early pages contained the usual gosh-what-a-pain-in-the-butt-little-brothers-are material, but Danny'd quickly gotten to her entries concerning his adventures in ghost fighting.

_Thursday_, the entry read, _April 15. The dome that this so-called Ghost King set over our town is still up. No word on whether we can get it down or not. Danny looks exhausted. The flood of ghosts that came through even before the skeleton warriors must have kept him busy all night. Either that, or the fact that Vlad Masters is sleeping in the room next to his. Danny never seemed to get on well with him... _Danny continued flipping around at random, reading entries that caught his eye.

_Saturday, June 2. Well, it finally happened. Danny found out I knew about his ghost powers. According to him, there was this huge confrontation outside the Nasty Burger that nearly resulted in the deaths of Mom, Dad, me, Sam, and Tucker, but no one remembered because the time stream was altered so that never happened. I think it's a bad sign that I am totally unsurprised by that explanation._

At that last sentence, Danny chuckled sadly. He missed Jazz so much that it sometimes hurt his heart. He glanced over at his bedside clock—three in the morning. He hadn't meant to stay up so late.

Danny yawned—which turned into a groan as a wisp of blue escaped his mouth. "Why now?" he moaned. He walked over to his window, opened it, and placed his hands on the windowsill. Praying that no one in any other houses was looking, Danny vaulted out of the window and, once he was clear of the Fentons' ghost shield, summoned his alter ego in a brilliant flash of white. He hovered for a few moments to get his bearings, and then veered off in the general direction that his ghost sense was indicating.

Danny loved flying. Out of all his ghostly abilities, flying was the one that came most naturally to him, and the one he felt most comfortable with. Once, he had tried to describe the feel of it to Sam: _It's like there are all these little conversations going on at the back of your mind at once, but you don't even know they're there unless you think about them, _he'd told her, _and if you want to stay in the air, you go back and tune out the conversation about gravity, you know? And that works for a lot of stuff—like you tune out the voice that says, "that wall is solid," or "people can see you," and you...you just do it._

Danny flew over that wall around the park and came to a halt in midair. A young man of maybe seventeen or eighteen was surrounded by five or six ghosts. The specters had the shapes of young girls—none under nine or over sixteen—dressed in pale white dresses that blew around where their legs would be. They'd backed the kid up against a tree. Each one was taking it in turn to grab his wrists sharply and whirl him around in what seemed to be a mockery of a dance. The boy screamed in pain each time this happened, while the girls laughed in sadistic glee as they glowed brighter. Danny realized that they were draining his life.

Not willing to squander any more precious time evaluating the situation, Danny swooped down and blasted one of the girls off the teen to get their attention. "Got Saturday night fever? They have medication for that, you know," Danny deadpanned, standing protectively over the boy's prone form while he lay huddled and shivering on the ground.

When the ghosts realized what was happening, they freaked out. One shrieked her displeasure; one snarled ferally; several cried in outrage, "He's back!" or "Phantom's here!" The oldest one—the one that Danny had blasted—got up and held up a hand for silence.

"Phantom, we have no quarrel with you," she said in an oddly accented voice. "Leave us to our prey, and we will forgive your trespass upon our territory."

Danny snorted derisively. "_Your_ territory?"

"Any man who sets foot in the park after dark is danced to death. We have said this. They know," the leader declared, staring hungrily at the unconscious teen. "Now leave us."

Danny's only response to his was to charge up an ectoblast and let her have it in the face, and the fight was on. Three girls jumped on him, snarling and spitting like animals, and the other two stayed back, content to look for an opening and to aid their injured leader.

Danny ducked some of their blows but couldn't avoid the majority. He spun and threw one ghost off his arm as if in a sick parody of crack-the-whip; she hit a tree hard before even thinking of intangibility, and her form shook and wavered with the impact. She howled in pain and faded out. One down.

He still had two to go—five if the other three joined the fray. Their victim still lay huddled against the tree, seeming all but comatose. Danny got one hand free, grabbed a girl by the face as she tried to bite at his shoulder, and blasted her from literally point-blank range. She screamed in agony as most of her features partially melted. Danny dropped her to the ground and let her writhe as she faded out as well. Two down.

The third was smarter than her two companions. When Danny tried to whip her off him as he had the first, she grabbed a tree branch with one hand and used her momentum plus her other hand to jerk Danny off his feet and away from the kid. Sprawled on the ground, Danny saw the other three rush forward to snatch their prey. To his opponent's surprise, he suddenly phased out of her grip and into the ground.

The leader was inches away from her intended victim when Danny hurtled from the ground directly beneath her and snatched her on his way up. All thoughts of their prey vanished as the three remaining ghosts—Danny's final attacker and the leader's two attendants—screeched in consternation.

Danny had the leader's arms pinned behind her back in midair while she squirmed and kicked violently. He flipped around in a graceful arc and hurtled back towards the ground with her held in front of him like a shield. The leader's eyes widened in fear (or whatever passed for fear among ghosts). "Hey, hey, what are you—?" she tried to demand, but not before—

_**SLAM.**_

The three remaining ghosts, who'd been keening and wailing in distress this whole time, now grew very, very silent. Danny stood spattered in the Ectoplasmic glop that remained of their leader and simply stared at them, his green eyes intense and threatening. Finally, he leaned forward and said one word.

"Boo."

They nearly trampled each other in their simultaneous attempts to get as far away as possible.

Danny doubted he'd seen the last of them, or their defeated comrades. He knew from experience that when a ghost, for lack of a better word, "dies" on the human plane, it fades out and reappears, weaker than before, in the Ghost Zone. He'd found that out on one desperate occasion when he was fifteen, and had neglected to hold back against an opponent, but after that and even now, he still preferred the Fenton Thermos. It was _far_ more humane.

Danny turned and bent down next to the teen that the ghosts had been attacking. His breathing was irregular and extremely shallow. Danny charged up both hands until they sparked with power, pressed them to the boy's chest, and forced a moderate force of energy through him. The boy jerked and involuntarily began to breathe more deeply. Danny lay his fingers on his neck and found a pulse.

The teen's eyes fluttered open to see Danny. He blinked, blinked again, then muttered, "Oh, my God. I'm dead."

Danny grabbed the front of the boy's shirt, stood up, and gave him a hearty shake. "You most certainly are _not_ dead," he told him sharply. "What you _are_ is, you're going to answer my questions honestly. Got it?"

The boy nodded fearfully. Danny demanded, "Now, what on earth possessed you to take a stroll in the park at three in the morning?"

"I...I...couldn't sleep," the youth stammered lamely. Danny raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. You couldn't sleep," he repeated derisively, making the entire concept sound idiotic.

The teen lowered his eyes and mumbled something involving his friends, a party, and a dare. "I stand corrected," Danny snapped. "Your _friends_ were the ones who put you up to it?" The boy nodded emphatically. "Get some new friends, then. The city is a dangerous place at night," Danny informed him in no uncertain terms.

Unbeknownst to Danny, the youth was slowly reaching behind his back to grasp at something hidden in his back pocket. Suddenly, a brilliant camera flash went off in Danny's face, causing him to drop the boy and slap at his own face in an effort to clear his vision. When the purple spots had dimmed enough to allow him to see, the teen had already jumped the fence and escaped.

For a moment, Danny considered pursuit, then dismissed the thought. He had more pressing issues—like how to find out where the ghosts were coming from. Obviously, they had to be coming from _somewhere_, and since the Fenton Portal had been permanently shut down, it was up to Danny to figure out where else the ghosts might have access to the Ghost Zone.

He scanned the immediate area: nothing. Of course. He might be searching until dawn and not find anything. Abruptly, his ghost sense went off again. Danny turned and saw Klemper chasing after another ghost, wailing about his lack of companionship.

Danny grinned. Perfect.

XxXxX

Klemper was gliding after a ghost he'd never met before, pleading, "Will you be my fri-_end_?" No one'd ever said "yes" to his question in over twenty years, but he felt like tonight was going to be his night. This potential friend had not yet flipped him the bird, so maybe—No, wait, there it was. Ah, well. There still might be hope.

Klemper's musings continued in this vein until a hand reached out of an alley as he whizzed past, and suddenly the world spun and flipped around. He shook his head to reorganize his thoughts and observed that he was being held up against a wall by the same hand holding his shirt, and that hand was attached to an arm that was attached to...

Hooray! Another potential friend! Specifically, it was the halfa, who hasn't been seen for almost a decade. Klemper reflected that surprises happen every day... Then he noticed that the ghost boy was not greeting him, or smiling, or displaying any inclination at all to be friendly; on the contrary, he looked rather threatening...

"Klemper," Phantom said—was it just him, or had Phantom's voice dropped an octave or two?—"you have seven seconds to tell me where the portal to the Ghost Zone is. Spill. _Now_."

Klemper smiled. Phantom probably wanted to make more friends. "Sure, it's behind the Nasty Burger. Want to be my friend?"

Phantom blinked, like he hadn't expected it to be that simple. "Maybe some other day," he said, and vanished before Klemper could say another word.

Klemper was disappointed. No luck there. Then he spotted another ghost and was off. There always was another friend to make.

XxXxX

Danny was at the Nasty Burger in ten minutes or less. Truth be told, he really hadn't expected getting information out of Klemper to be that easy. Like taking candy from a baby... He snuck around to the back alley and saw it on the other side of the Dumpster: a strange incongruity in the air, through which swirls of green cloud could be seen.

Danny inspected the rip. It was slightly wider than his outstretched arms, and about half again as tall as he was. He poked his head through very cautiously, and saw no one in the immediate vicinity in the other side.

Danny had to admit it. He had no clue what to do to close it. He touched cautiously at the "edges" of the rip, and thought he could feel...something. He felt again, and definitely knew that there was a weird sensation at his fingertips, like the way you can feel the heat coming off another person's skin without actually touching them.

Danny tried to close his fingers around where he thought the edge was, and felt a strange tingling. Hoping he could just pull the rip closed like he'd seen other ghosts like Wulf do, he stretched over and grabbed the other edge with his free hand.

It was as if Danny'd grabbed hold of a pair of live wires. Energy coursed through him like he'd completed an electrical circuit, but it wasn't painful. It was..._exhilarating_. For a second, he felt _joined_—he was the shadow of the oldest tree in the park; he was one with the misty fog that blanketed the Ghost Zone; he was the racing heartbeat of a teenager who'd narrowly avoided a car crash three counties over; he was the last breath of every single million person who dies every second of every day—and he must have let go in shock, for he found himself on the ground with no explanation.

"Whoa," he said, blinking. "That...was..._weird_."

"No, I'll tell you what's weird," came an angry and all-too-depressingly-familiar voice from the other side of the alley. Danny whipped around in shock to see Valerie standing on her new glider prototype and leveling a bazooka at his face. "What's weird is that I'm giving you a head start, ghost kid. Or you could waste it trying to explain to me what you were doing opening a portal to the Ghost Zone. I look forward to hearing it."

Two things passed through Danny's mind in quick succession—one, evidently, she'd walked in on him trying to close that portal and made a logical (to her) assumption, and two, he had to get her away from the Nasty Burger and its volatile condiments if she was going to fire that big scary gun, which she definitely would.

He made a dash for the street behind him, and heard the high-pitched whine of her engines following. Dammit, last night he should have paid more attention to those blueprints... He pitched forward as a near miss pelted his feet with chunks of road, then nearly smacked himself in disgust at his stupidity, and launched himself into the air. Fine time to forget his ghost powers—though, to be fair, he had only recently begun using them again...

"You're going down, Phantom!" Valerie yelled from behind him. "I've been waiting for this for a _long_ time!"

"Do you even _sleep_?" Danny shot over his shoulder, both verbally and literally, trying to strike the gun from her hand. She avoided the bolt and contemptuously snarled, "How can I, with freaks like you on the loose?"

"Walked right into that one, didn't I?" Danny muttered under his breath. He had to stop this before it got out of hand. Ducking another shot, he went intangible and dove down under the street. Maybe if he came out a few streets over and changed back, he could get home before she gave up. He zigzagged through the sewers until he was far enough away, then phased up—

—Directly into the path of a very painful ectolaser. He reeled, clutching his smoking shoulder and staring in confusion at Valerie, who'd come from _nowhere_. _How the hell did she follow me? _he thought blankly.

"Surprised?" she asked, lazily aiming her gun. Danny meanwhile, was frantically trying to remember something, _anything_ that might help him in his predicament.

_The sensor array—Valerie said something about an improved on-board tracking system last night. Tucker mentioned a flaw in the design—what was it?_ Danny's thoughts were frantically racing as he tossed up a shield angled so Valerie's shot wouldn't hit her upon reflection. _"The ecto-signature recognition system needs more configuration,"_ Tucker had said, protesting Valerie's declaration that it was ready. _"If it senses two sources reading as the same signature, the tracking program loops into a snarl. It needs _more work_."_

Two sources...The beginnings of a plan formed in his head. Danny ducked under an SUV and split himself in half, suffering only a few seconds of disorientation. That trick had never really been his forte in his younger years, but maybe that had to do with his teenage short attention span. One of him flew out from under the car, distracting Valerie while the other turned invisible and slipped in close to the glider.

Now, if he could remember those blueprints, he could pull out the sensors and get away without her following... He grabbed at a wire concealed underneath a wing-like projection. There was a sharp popping sound as smoke began to trail from one engine. Oops.

Valerie wheeled around in fury, livid at being suckered, and fired blindly at where she thought he was. In spite of his invisibility, she managed to score a lucky hit on his left foot. Pain shot up his leg like fire, and he bit back a scream. Danny decided that with one side of the glider completely off-kilter, he'd done enough damage for one day—plus, Tucker would kill him off completely if he damaged the sensors.

He soared out from under the glider and let his duplicate fade out. Valerie lost control of her vehicle, which was listing to one side dangerously, and plowed into the sidewalk. "You're dead," she pronounced after she leapt off. When Valerie got dangerous, she stopped yelling and got very, very calm and cold—like she was now.

"Took you ten years to notice?" Danny asked, unable to resist the jibe. He threw her his usual mocking salute and flew off.

XxXxX

Valerie, clutching the smoking shell of her once shiny and new glider, was forced to endure the utmost humiliation—walking home. There was nothing more demeaning than getting beaten underhandedly, and then being forced to take a half hour or more getting home and brooding the whole way. She had _known_ that the sensors needed more work, yet she had insisted on going out after Phantom. Now she'd have to explain to Tucker how she managed to grievously damage their only prototype.

At the thought of Tucker, Val felt very guilty. Sure, they had their spats, but that what kept their spice going. Otherwise, they'd probably bore each other to tears. Now she was letting her grudge put their relationship on the rocks. Tuck didn't deserve that. She vowed to apologize to him when she got back.

Speaking of getting back, she was almost at Fentonworks now. Hopefully, she could get in without waking anyone at 5:30 in the morning...

She stopped. There was somebody walking towards the house on the other side of the street. Val couldn't make him out at this distance, but he was clutching his right shoulder and limping on his left leg. "Hey!" she yelled, shifting her hold on the glider skeleton and whipping out an ectoblaster. She couldn't afford to take chances.

The man got closer and she could see his leather jacket and shock of black hair—it was Danny! What was he doing up this early? Val rushed over to see what was wrong with his shoulder, but he waved her off. "What happened?" she whispered urgently.

"It was stupid," he panted through gritted teeth. "I heard a commotion earlier and came out to investigate—saw a ghost trying to hurt a kid who was out late. Shot at it—" he gestured to his pocket where the butt of an ectopistol was peeking out, "—and, it went intangible. The shot—the shot deflected off a trashcan, off a Dumpster—hit me in the shoulder. Don't touch it!" Danny gasped as she brushed his shoulder, trying to inspect the wound.

"I'm just going to look," she said soothingly, and carefully peeled back his jacket and T-shirt to see—"Oh, God, that looks _awful_," she breathed. Danny said nothing, but squeezed his eyes shut and nodded curtly. His shoulder sported a massive burn mark—charred black and oozing in the middle, then blotchy white at the edges of the actual wound, and finally his skin had turned bright red for up to five inches from the edges.

"Danny, you need that looked at—badly," Val told him, but he shook his head.

"No, I'll dress it myself; we have first aid kits for these sorts of injuries in the lab—"

"—Danny, these weapons are designed to output enough energy to _kill_ a ghost! You know what I mean. You're lucky _you_ weren't more seriously injured, if not _fatally_ injured!" Val hissed vehemently. "By the way, what happened to your foot?"

"Twisted,' Danny said. However, Valerie didn't think that he was limping the way someone with a twisted ankle would limp; he was putting his weight on the whole foot and then lifting up quickly, whereas most would use the toes or the balls of the feet, depending on the way it was twisted. She didn't pry, though, but just put her arm around his waist and let him lean on her for support. "Thanks," he grunted, and the two of them managed to get up the steps.

Before either could knock, however, the door was opened. "Hey Val, hey Dann—what happened?" Jack began to say, but caught sight of Danny cradling his shoulder and Valerie clutching her smoking glider.

"The usual array of ghost issues," Val informed him. "Danny's hurt. He took an ectoblast to the shoulder."

"He did? That's not good!" Jack said, concerned.

Danny tried to say something on the order of, "It's not that bad," but all he got was, "It's not th—_nngh_!" The rest of his sentence was lost in his moan of pain. He hissed through clenched teeth, his face twisted in agony, then conceded, "Okay, maybe...it is."

"You're coming with me," Jack told him, his tone brooking no argument. "You can go back to sleep, Valerie. Sorry you had to get up at all," he added.

"That's okay, I'm up now. At least I got Danny in safe," she said. "I don't sleep much anyway."

"How can she, with rebels like me on the loose?" Danny tried to joke. Valerie laughed, but somehow the way he said it gave her an eerie sense of déjà vu...

XxXxX

Jack led Danny down to the lab. "You were out there for nearly three hours—what were you doing?" he scolded. Danny flinched, and Jack saw his face blanch even paler, though that may have been in pain.

"How did you—?"

"I heard your footsteps outside our bedroom door around three," Jack told him. "Now, maybe you're used to keeping those kinds of hours—of course, I can't give you a curfew, you're twenty-four—but for God's sake, don't go outside that late! These days in Amity, nighttime is the ghost's tie, and if you aren't suited up properly for hunting, stay in bed. Now, let's see where I put that first aid kit..." he muttered, groping through a cabinet with his back to Danny.

"Uh...you guys shut down the portal, right?" Danny, behind him, tried to change the subject. Jack just talked to him over his shoulder, still rummaging.

"Yeah, the ghosts were getting to be too much... Some can open their own portals, though, and that became a problem until we equipped the Specter Speeder with a system to locate portals and shut them down."

"The Specter Speeder's still intact?"

"Well, yeah, it should be right in the far corner, near the old portal...you didn't see it? I wasn't looking..."

"Dad." Danny's voice was suddenly urgent. "There's nothing there."

"What do you mean, there's—" Jack turned and stopped dead in his tracks.

The Specter Speeder was gone.

A/N: Bwahaha! No, Danny didn't walk past his parent's room, as I'm sure most of you were thinking, which means that now you all should be asking, "Well, if they weren't Danny's footsteps..._whose were they?_


	11. Best Laid Plans

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: Okay, I know this is three months late. I know. I really am sorry for the delay. I had writer's block, and then right when I had the chapter done and ready to be written, my computer died. I swear I am not making this up. It died. I'm sorry. Now that I have the groveling apologies out of the way, I'd just like to get some things straight:

One, after seeing Reality Trip, I _may_ go back and rewrite Chapter Three. Not with much, just perhaps more filler on ghost envy and Lydia. However, I am not changing the outcome of this story, I am not changing any of the back-story, and I am not changing the name I gave to Freakshow. In short, I am largely ignoring Reality Trip. It's just too much of a hassle, especially after just recovering from a massive case of writer's block.

Two, there is something you should know about this chapter. It doesn't start where you think it does: that is to say, some point chronologically after Danny's shoulder is treated and the Specter Speeder's theft is discovered. It starts **before** that. It starts **at the same point in time that Chapter Ten starts**. It tells us what was going on **during** Chapter Ten. So please, no snippy reviews about things being out of order and whatnot. If you're going to write a snippy review, make it about what a monumental jerk I was to go and pause production of this for _three freaking months_. I won't blame you at all.

Disclaimer: Hey, if I owned Danny, I wouldn't have written this fanfic, and it wouldn't exist, therefore this disclaimer wouldn't exist, therefore I'd be in legal trouble for not writing a disclaimer for something I already own, therefore the law would be out of order, therefore society would fall into chaos, therefore life as we know it would cease to be. You should thank me for not owning this amazing show. Cash only, please.

Also, I borrowed a lot of the random filler about three in the morning from Ray Bradbury's _Something Wicked This Way Comes_. It's a very good book, so please read it, before Mr. Bradbury chases after me for swiping his material.

**Chapter 11: Best Laid Plans**

Into this wild abyss, the wary fiend

Stood on the brink of hell and looked awhile

Pondering his voyage... –John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

XxXxX

_Truly_, thought Eduard Friechscho, _three o'clock in the morning is a dismal time_. _By now, the only ones awake are those who can't sleep, who have something to hide, something to lose, something to do that, if done, would make no difference if it hadn't been. The dead time of the night, for the dead parts of the spirit. The midnight of the soul._ That sounded poetic. He should be writing this down.

A strange noise caught his attention; he thought he heard something outside his window. Odd, for the hour of the night. After a while, he shrugged and went back to his musings. Speaking of the hour of the night, it was time to put the first part of his little revenge scheme into play.

Eduard ignored the tiny voice in the back of his mind that whispered, _It won't work; you're relying too much on chance. There's no way these people will just _happen_ to have the type of item you need. You might never find the ghost kid. You might..._

Rubbish. Of _course_ the plan would work. It _had_ to. As for _not_ finding some technological method of breaking the ghost's free will (ha, as if the term could even apply to the consciousness of such a lower entity), he could always simply _destroy_ the spirit. Even though that wouldn't be quite as... _satisfying_.

Deciding he could wait no longer, Eduard switched the small desk light off and silently crept into the hallway. At 3:10 in the morning, there really was no way anyone could be awake, but that was no reason to throw caution to the wind. He moved as quickly and quietly as possible, but was unable to keep the floorboards in front of the parents' bedroom from creaking slightly. After he froze and listened, however, he heard no break in the father's snores, and continued on.

He had pretty good night vision, but a terrible sense of direction; twice, he nearly fell down a flight of stairs that he'd been actively trying to avoid. Eventually, he made it to the door leading down to the Fentons' lab, when—

"Are you lost?" The little child of the other ghost hunters popped up out of _nowhere_. Eduard choked back a yelp of surprise. "Ah, yes, evidently I must be. How very observant you are. Do you know where the bathroom is?"

The little girl pointed to the door immediately to his right. "_That's_ the bathroom. _Don't _open this door—it leads to the lab. No one touches lab stuff besides trained pro-_feh_-shun-uls," she informed him, making sure to enunciate "professionals." Her parents had probably taught her that. "That's a rule."

"What a memory! It's a wonder you aren't in school yet," Eduard said, fighting to keep sounding nice. He hated acting happy to regular people, much less three-year-old brats who didn't know when to stay in bed... "Hold on, wait a moment..."

He reached behind her ear and "found" a quarter—an incredibly simple sleight-of-hand trick that any respectable ringmaster could perform. If he had the right preparation, he could have produced a whole host of things...wait, what was he doing? Focus on getting the kid out of here!

The child's mouth fell open. "Wow!" she said, and immediately began feeling behind her ears for any more hidden items.

"Sorry, but you won't find anything else until you go to bed," Eduard told her. Thank heavens for the gullibility of small children. She immediately perked up and rushed back to the living room where her parents were already asleep, offering a cheery "Good night!"

He waited a few more minutes to make sure she'd really fallen asleep. Then he quietly eased the lab door open and slunk down the steps.

The Fenton's lab gave new meaning to the phrase "ordered chaos." There was barely a pathway between the boxes of random lethal-looking steel-and-chrome gun components, half-assembled mysterious objects of unknown nature, beeping computer terminals, and large tubs stamped with the symbol for "dangerous ectoplasmic residue": a green skull superimposed over the biohazardous waste symbol. Eduard avoided those like the plague and made his way over to a terminal marked: "Data Files Search Engine."

Excitedly cracking his knuckles, he typed in, "_tracking device_." The search came back with thirty results. He didn't have time for thirty results. He frowned, and typed in, "_ghost control_." Twenty hits. He still needed to narrow it down a little, but one entry caught his eye: "Spectral Suggestor." He pulled up the info sheet and read, _Possible method for reducing risk of return to human plane by captured-and-released ghosts? While in thermos or other containment device, a sub-ultraconscious frequency brainwave alteration unit could be used to implant subconscious compulsion to stay in Ghost Zone. Allows for non-lethal weaponry to be utilized, but possibly impractical. Priority: low._

"Feh, that's not what I need," Eduard muttered angrily, then froze. He heard footsteps. Quickly, he exited the search engine window to cover his tracks, and frantically cast about for a hiding place. Spotting an open door in a vehicle of some sort, he threw himself inside just as he heard the lab door open.

Eduard held his breath...and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a heart-stoppingly loud "_bang-clunk-wham-slam-THWUNK_!"

The stairs were at the other end of the lab, so Eduard could not see who had come down or what had happened. He could hear someone groan, as if in pain, and thickly grunt, "Ow..."

More footsteps down the stairs could be heard, as well as a female voice. "Tuck? (gasp) What happened?" Male voice, hazy with sleep and mild pain: "I'm guessing that this isn't the bathroom..." Eduard had to fight the urge to snicker in sheer relief and a little superiority when he figured out what had happened: The other man, the brat's father, had gotten up to use the bathroom, opened the wrong door, and fallen down the steps. What an idiot.

Eduard waited longer, but the couple had apparently gone upstairs for good. He moved to get out of the vehicle he'd hidden in, but his elbow jogged a switch.

Immediately, the door closed with a _whoosh_, and likely would have taken one of his fingers off if he hadn't snatched his hand out of the way. Lights began to flick on as the speeder went through its start-up sequence. "Point of entry detected," a flat computer voice stated.

Eduard had frozen when the door. He was rather inept with computers, and had no desire to get caught somewhere he was not supposed to be. That would blow his cover quite effectively. However, he was truly curious to see what ghosthunting functions that the speeder may have been equipped with.

"Point of entry detected," the computer repeated. "Standing by for 'search and eliminate' application."

Eduard decided that the best option would be to get out and play with the speeder some other night. Unfortunately, he was lost as to what button operated the automated doors. Praying to whatever higher power might be watching, he threw a switch that he assumed must have been the one he'd already hit.

Luck, it seemed, was not with him. "Autopilot set," a smooth and matter-of-factual computer voice informed him. "Search and eliminate process engaged. Launching in 3... 2... 1..." Eduard had just enough time to clutch the handrests of his seat for support before a hitherto concealed door slid open in front of the speeder, and the speeder itself took off on a preprogrammed flight to hell knows where.

Buildings rushed by at a sickening pace. Eduard had no way of knowing where the speeder was taking him. Finally, the vehicle slowed up and stopped in an alley behind a fast-food joint. "Point of entry target-locked. Do you wish to commence sealing?" the computer asked.

Eduard, bewildered and certain that he was in hot water, looked out through the transparent canopy. He couldn't tell what the computer was talking about; he didn't often understand computers anyway—

Wait. Behind the dumpster, he thought he could see something. It looked like one of those heat mirages one sees in the desert (not that he knew from experience), but the more he focused on it, the more he could make out the faint shapes of clouds tinged with green and other moving figures that seemed incongruous with the landscape.

"Ghost Zone point of entry detected," the computer insisted. "Do you wish to commence quarantine and closure?"

Eduard straightened up. So there _was_ a Ghost Zone? He had always been under the impression that it was a myth. If there was a Ghost Zone, that meant the ghosts lived there, and that meant—**_that meant he could find the ghost kid there._**

XxXxX

Valerie was just starting to doze back off after spending fifteen minutes inspecting her husband for injuries, when a hurried knock at the door jerked her back to complete awareness. She threw her blanket off and stealthily prowled over to the front door. Holding her pistol firmly in one hand, she pressed herself flat against the wall and nudged the door open with the barrel (it had taken her years to master that trick).

When it swung open, she eased around the doorframe, gun at the ready, to see a white-faced teenage kid, barely over seventeen, holding both hands up in a "surrender" gesture. He held what appeared to be a digital camera in his left hand. His hair was a tangled mess, he had bleeding scratches all over his face and arms, and he had a wild, terrified look in his eyes.

"P-please," he begged. "I have information for the Fentons. D-don't shoot, I swear—"

Valerie didn't back down. Her wrist radar indicated that the kid wasn't a ghost or overshadowed by one, but she had long since learned the hard way that a ghost could control someone without actually being in them. This kid's family could be held ransom; he could be under some mind-influencing force; he could even be simply scared into submission. And if by chance he was here of his own free will, he'd be more willing to cooperate with someone whom he thought might shoot him at a moment's notice.

The kid was still babbling. "The ghosts—they were gonna kill me, but Danny Phantom was there, the Fentons gotta know he's back…"

"What?" The word was pure reflex—Valerie obviously knew that already.

"Here, this camera—I got a picture," the youth explained, handing her the camera. Valerie turned it on (after quickly scanning it to make sure it wasn't an explosive). The range was too close, his face was whipped to the side and out of focus, and the aural effect cast on cameras by ghosts only made it worse, but even so, Valerie could tell. It was Phantom.

"How long ago was this?" she demanded.

"T-ten minutes," the kid stammered, almost fainting with relief that she apparently wasn't going to shoot him. Valerie moved to go gather her hunting equipment, but a thought struck her. She turned back to the kid.

"How far from here do you live?"

The kid blinked. "Uhh…" he started, but Valerie waved to cut him off. "Never mind that now; shut up and get inside," she ordered. "You aren't walking home this late; you're sleeping here and going home in the morning. Don't argue." Mentally, she hoped the Fentons wouldn't mind.

"B-but—"

"Listen, kid, you're cutting into _my_ time now! If I have to _knock you out_, I will!" Valerie snapped. The kid shut up and scurried in. Making sure that he was safe on the couch where she'd been, she hastily scribbled a note to Tucker and left it on the coffee table, just in case. Val grabbed her hunting equipment and the prototype glider, and slipped out the front door.

Phantom wouldn't know what hit him.

XxXxX

Throwing caution to the winds at the thought of vengeance, Eduard grabbed the steering controls, by some miracle disengaged the autopilot, and zoomed off into the depths of the ghosts' world.

He didn't enjoy it. The constant monotonous green misty atmosphere and landscape made it hard to see, and within minutes Eduard got himself hopelessly lost. He realized it, and tried several times to find the portal again, but ended up steering himself farther and farther into the Ghost Zone. Wails and moans could sometimes be heard through the supposedly soundproof canopy—at these Eduard repressed a shudder. It was unnatural, this world, this whole place. It wasn't right. He shouldn't be wandering amongst the souls of the damned, these lesser beings...

"Real world item detected," the computer voice of the Specter Speeder cut across his thoughts. Eduard glanced at the display screen to see a strangely-shaped red icon appear on a mapping graph. He had no clue what it was supposed to be, but it looked interesting.

"Well, why not?" he asked aloud, figuring that it was at least someplace to concentrate on rather than getting more and more lost. He steered the speeder in the direction the graph indicated.

The swirling opaque green clouds gave way to translucent viridian mist, through which Eduard caught a glimpse of a huge shadowy structure. Five large towers surrounded a taller sixth tower in the center. The entire building was constructed of some black stony material that seemed to absorb the light around it.

There were no doors—at least none that Eduard could see. According to the tracker, the mystery red icon lay somewhere right in the middle of this building. Eduard sighed, and consigned himself to the proverbial scrap heap. It looked like he was doomed to rot here in the bowels of this ghost world, unless he got very, very lucky.

Suddenly, the speeder gave a jolt. Eduard whirled, casting around to see as another tremor shook the vehicle. Several ghosts were firing some sort of energy blasts at the speeder. Their leader, a terrifying white-suited, white-skulled apparition, called out, and the Specter Speeder's audio system transmitted the message in the cabin.

"Visitor to the Ghost Zone!" the leader addressed him in a low-pitched threatening southern drawl, "You are trespassing on restricted territory in an unauthorized vehicle! You are to power down and await further inquiry. Fail to comply, and we will have no choice but to bring you in by force."

Eduard panicked. Being chased down and threatened by a group of hostile spirits would do that to anyone, especially someone lost in the Ghost Zone in a stolen speeder. Though he'd given up belief in any higher power a long time ago, he threw a fervent hurried prayer to any deity that might have been listening, and kicked full power to the engines.

The speeder lurched forward, and Eduard had just enough time to get himself used to the idea of death before the wall of the building rushed up and...and failed to impact. Eduard blinked. He was now hurtling down a long hallway.

He didn't know what had happened and frankly couldn't care less, just as long as it meant he wasn't dead. If the speeder had suddenly developed the ability to go through seemingly solid walls, that was fine with him.

The Speeder's tracking device dinged. "Real-world item in close proximity," it said. Eduard glanced down at the screen. The oddly-shaped red icon was now blinking faster than before. The Speeder slowed down and came to a halt. Eduard glanced nervously through the windshield, and bit back a gasp.

He had ended up in a circular room of whatever building he'd entered. That wasn't the big thing, though; the room was rather plain and wholly unremarkable. What made his heart pound was the object _inside_ the room.

Balanced perfectly on one point in the center of the room was a beautifully worked staff, glittering slightly in the light cast by the Specter Speeder's headlights. The rod seemed to be made of the same black non-reflective material as the outer walls of the fortress. It was topped with a bone-white crescent, positioned so that both tips were pointed upwards, and a dark purple circular gem was set in the curve of the crescent. A symbol was carved on the gem's surface, but Eduard couldn't make it out.

It was so beautiful. He _had_ to have it. Eduard popped the hatch and climbed out of the speeder. Provided he did this fast, he could take it and get out before the staff's owner found him. Eduard didn't really consider why he wanted the staff so badly—perhaps it was a conviction that such a work of art shouldn't belong in the hands of some denizen of this hellish world.

He touched the staff and was surprised to feel it humming beneath his fingertips to some sort of natural rhythm. Almost like it was _alive_... A chill ran down his spine, and he fought the urge to turn and run. Eduard grabbed it with both hands and—_whoa_, it was heavier than it looked. He gathered himself and heaved with all his might. The staff came off the floor with a jarring screech, as if the resistance it met was something more than simple gravity. Eduard lurched toward the speeder, half-carrying, half-dragging his prize.

The moment he got it inside, the strange resistance abated. Eduard propped it against a seat, where it stayed while he steered the speeder around and shot away from the building. Of course, he remembered on his way out that he was still _lost_ here in the Ghost Zone. He tried everything—he looked for landmarks, not that there were any, he tried to make the guidance system work, and he even touched his new staff for good luck.

Whether it was the staff, the luck, karma, or just good old-fashioned coincidence, the speeder's guidance system dinged. "Ecto-energy spike at a level of E5+ detected," it said, and a small green dot appeared on the guidance screen. Eduard took a chance and followed it. It led back to the gate he'd come in, thank heaven.

He drove the speeder into a mostly ghost-free section of the park, curled up in the seat after thanking whoever was responsible for his escape from the Ghost Zone, and settled down for the night. There would be no way to sneak into the Fentons' lab to return the Specter Speeder that night, he knew, so he figured he'd grab sleep while he could.

XxXxX

Unbeknownst to him, Eduard was in a lot more trouble than he bargained for, because the staff he'd taken was not just any harmless inanimate object. Against maybe every known law of probability (except perhaps Murphy's Law), he'd picked up the one object in the Ghost Zone that actually could think for itself.

It was the Staff of the Office of Chaos, handed down for millennia to the guardians of the mysterious force of Chaos that had been locked away in a remote section of the Ghost Zone long ago. At this particular moment in time, the staff was imprinted with the consciousness of the long-dead Dis Maelstrom, the former Master of Chaos. He hadn't gone out of his way to stir up anarchy for well over three hundred years. He was due.

And this vengeance-bent soul he'd found would make the perfect tool...

A/N: Thank God, it's done! It's really done! I hated this chapter, just so you know. But don't worry—Chapter 12 is already started, and I'm having fun with it. Drop a review so I feel loved, please!

_Coming Next Chapter_: The return of our favorite rebel, whatever happened to the random kid in the park, and the plot thickens...


	12. Homebound Runaway

**Free Spirit**

8 years after a tragedy that forced him out to deal with life on his own terms, 24-year-old Danny thinks he's ready to liberate himself from his chains of guilt and self-doubt. But a long-forgotten enemy has been liberated as well—and Danny won't be a free spirit for long... DxS

A/N: For the purposes of this fanfiction, Amity is in Virginia. I considered many mitigating factors, like the fact that there is a beach, they are four days away from Wisconsin, and all the road trip stuff after Reality Trip. I also closed my eyes and pointed at a map of the US.

Disclaimer: _I-own-nothing-I-make-no-money-from-this-so-please-don't-hurt-meee!_

**Chapter 12:** **Homebound Runaway**

"I've come to the conclusion that there are certain friends in your life who are always your friends and you just have to accept it. You see them even though you don't really want to see them. You don't call them, they call you. You don't call back, they call again. You're late, they wait. You don't show up, they're not upset. You try and stab them, they understand." –Jerry Seinfeld

XxXxX

"_Danny!" A cry rang out through the dark streets of the town that night. Danny turned, perplexed. Who would be out this late? The sound came again: "Danny!" At the end of the street, a lone figure stood. The person began running towards Danny and slowly resolved itself into... Danny's heart gave an excited leap. "Sam!" he shouted._

_He caught her as she ran into his arms, and they embraced. "I missed you so much, Sam," he whispered to her, but she didn't reply. "Sam?"_

"_Danny..." she whispered. With a shock, Danny realized that her whole body felt stone-cold to the touch. Something was wrong. Her grip around his waist tightened—it hurt! "How could you?" she hissed._

"_What? What's wrong?" he asked, hoping that there was some mistake._

_Sam was silent for a moment. Then, an accusation: "You killed me."_

_A cold shock ran through him. "What?" he gasped. Danny tore himself from her grasp and backed up to view her. Her hair was wild. Her deathly glassy eyes stared at him, filled with accusing anger. She was pale, pale as death—except for the small trickle of blood running down one corner of her mouth._

"_Yes, Danny," she snarled, "it was you! For eight years, I thought you were dead. _**Eight years!**_ It killed me from the inside out!" Sam screamed at him, barely seeming rational. "But you...you didn't care. You ran away from all that we had—and all we could have had! How dare you leave me here to die? You did it! _**You murdered me!**_"_

"_Sam..." he tried to beseech her, "I never—I didn't know... I _never_ wanted to hurt you! I would _never_ do that to you! _Never_."_

_Sam glared at him, then threw her head back suddenly and laughed hysterically. "Never?" she shrieked at an uncomfortable pitch. The scene behind them twisted, changed. They were on a train bridge over a gorge seventy to eighty feet below. Danny's mind froze. He knew this bridge. Sam continued, "You'd _never _do _anything_ to hurt me? Don't you _**remember?**_"_

_  
Danny tried to say of course he'd never, but his mouth was no longer his own—his will was no longer his own—because the red haze had come back—choking down his apologies and promises to Sam, he saw—his hands moved of their own accord, he couldn't stop them—Sam, screaming, falling again, like he'd seen her in every one of his recurring nightmares._

_As her hair flew violently upward, it lengthened, and changed, and all of a sudden, she was Jazz, hurtling fifty feet to the unforgiving concrete below—Danny screamed—Oh God!—she was dying again, and it was _all his fault_—but he couldn't save her because the red haze had choked him down, flooding his mind and drowning him and trapping him inside his own head, where no one but himself could hear him screaming. All he could do was watch as she—Sam (Jazz)—plummeted to her death _**again**_ because of him—and he saw—his hands—_

_His hands were soaked in her blood._

XxXxX

Danny shot awake, adrenaline coursing through him so fast that he could _feel_ it, and he bit back a curse as his shoulder throbbed painfully with the sudden motion.

"Just a nightmare," he breathed. "Just... another... damn nightmare."

It was a long time before he fell asleep again.

XxXxX

When Tucker woke up at about eight o'clock that morning, it was just in time to see his three-year-old daughter scolding a tall, pale, freckle-faced teenage guy. "And don't you _ever_ go out at night without pa-_ren_-tal _super-vision_ again!" Diana finished, shaking a stubby finger at him. "You could be badly _im_-jured."

The kid seemed to be trying not to laugh. "And who taught you that speech?" he asked.

"_I_ did," Tucker said. He had the satisfaction of watching the kid jump about six feet into the air. "Who in space are you?" he added. The kid blushed, opened his mouth—

"His name is Rob," Valerie answered for him, walking into the living room. "He arrived at about ten after four in the morning, fresh from a ghost attack in the park, he says." Val made sure to emphasize _he says_. "We're giving him a ride home."

Tucker sat up on the couch, yawned and pointed out, "But we're _walking_ home."

"Fair enough, we're _escorting_ him," Valerie amended.

Rob ventured, "You know, I could—"

"You could refuse to argue with me," Valerie informed him, giving him one of those _boy-when-I-see-your-parents-you-are-so-busted_ looks. Rob closed his mouth. Val turned back to Tucker. "Danny's up in his room. I caught him outside at 5:30 in the morning limping around with a burned shoulder. He took an ectoblast ricochet and it didn't look pretty."

Tucker jumped up. "How is he?"

"He should be okay. Spectral energy emissions aren't supposed to fester or anything and he should heal quickly," Valerie said, then shook her head. "My god, though, his shoulder was in bad shape. I wonder how high he set it to; I've never seen an ectoblast wound that serious on a human."

Tucker casually changed the subject. "Geez, did anything _else_ go on tonight?" he asked, while stretching and cracking his back.

The way Valerie dropped her eyes and said, "_No_," told Tucker all he needed to know. "Uh-huh," he said skeptically. "Well, we better head out before someone else shows up."

XxXxX

Even though Danny was used to sleeping light and little, the combination of more than one late, late night plus a couple nasty injuries plus heavy medication to deal with said injuries plus one vicious nightmare ensured that he was out of it until half past one, a good eight hours of sleep. Of all things, he awoke to the smell of...bacon.

"Good morning, Danny," Maddie chirped as he trudged into the kitchen. He sat down with only a minor wince as his shoulder brushed the back of the chair. "How are you feeling this morning?" she added, looking at him with concern.

"Pretty good: I can't even feel my foot anymore," Danny said, shrugging (and regretting it). "The shoulder isn't doing so well, though. By the way, is the pain making me hallucinate? I thought I smelled bacon."

"Nope. That was me," Maddie admitted.

"Okay, one: it's one thirty in the afternoon, and two: I thought you hated bacon because it clogs arteries and widens hips," Danny pointed out. Maddie laughed.

"I can't believe you remember me saying that, honey," she said. "Anyway, your father needed an organic base compound for a project, so I'm draining off the grease. You can take the bacon itself—he doesn't need it."

"Where is he, anyway?" Danny asked, snatching a bacon strip and munching it contentedly.

"Oh, downstairs, working on a particle accelerator or something," Maddie said dismissively, glancing at the basement door. "He's also flipping out over the disappearance of the Specter Speeder and disappearance of our other houseguest. The obvious conclusion is that he made off with it, and of course Jack is livid."

"Fr— The GSA guy? He's gone?" Danny's head shot up.

"Yes, and without even a note," Maddie sniffed. "If I ever catch that man I am going to give him piece of my mind and a few good whacks with the Anti-Creep Stick. Of course, this could all be a big misunderstanding...but I doubt it."

Danny poured himself some orange juice and asked, "Assuming he did, do you have any theories why?"

"Who knows?" Maddie threw up her hands. "I'm sure there's a rational explanation for everything, but does anything ever work out anyway? Shut up and eat your bacon. Mama's busy.

"Oh, and by the way," she added, "Tucker and Valerie went home this morning. They wanted me to tell you that you're welcome to come over later today. Meaning now, actually," she said, looking at the clock. "Val wanted to see how your shoulder was healing up."

Danny drained his juice glass, ate one last bacon slice, and said, "Sure, I don't have anything better to do." He went to grab his jacket.

Maddie shook her head. "Some things never change," she said wistfully, recalling the days of Danny's early teenhood.

On his way out, Danny gave Maddie a quick peck on the cheek. "See ya later, Mom," he called as he breezed out the door. Maddie's wistful smile faded a little, and she brushed her face with her fingers. It still tingled a little where her son's cheek stubble had scraped against her skin.

Maybe some things did change after all.

XxXxX

When the Foley-Grays got home that morning, Valerie took a long nap. Tucker figured she deserved it, and spent the rest of his day surfing the internet for fun, which he hadn't had time for in ages. Diana was busy playing with the pots again.

Around noon, Valerie woke up. "Geez, let me waste the whole morning, why don't you," she grumbled half-seriously. Tucker just laughed. She walked into the kitchen, presumably to get lunch. "Tuck?" she asked a few minutes later. "There's a message on the phone for you."

Tucker listened to it, and a grin spread across his face. "Oh, but Danny's gonna _love_ this," he said.

XxXxX

A jet-black limousine rolled through the streets of Amity Park. People slowed walking to stare. It seemed like a mirage—no person privileged enough to afford such transportation was stupid enough to come all the way out here in it. The back windows were tinted, so that the only person that passers-by could get a glimpse of was the driver. He was a tall, thin, tan man, not more than twenty-eight, with obviously dyed white streaks running through his dark hair. His eyes were obscured by dark reflective sunglasses. He looked bored, and none too happy to be there.

If the passers-by could get a glimpse of the limo's sole occupant, they'd note that _she_ didn't look too happy either. Impatient feet clad in worn combat boots tapped a rhythm on the floor of the limo. Purple-smeared lips pursed in annoyance; amethyst-fire eyes narrowed and scowled at the driver.

Samantha Manson was _not_ in a good mood, and she needed someone to vent it on.

She got the opportunity when the driver half-turned and inquired, "Do we honestly _have_ to be here?"

"What the hell do you _mean_, 'Do we _have _to be here?'" Sam snapped. "_You_ don't have to be here, you know. You know how much I hate riding around in a goddamned limousine for everyone to gawk at, like a _gorilla_ in a moving _zoo_. I'm out here for _two damn days_, what do I need this _hearse_ for, anyway? I'm a capable _adult_; I don't need a _chaperone_; I was _born_ in this goddamned city! I'd have _no problem_ driving up on my own, but _nooo_... Sam has to go in the _limousine_. As you can imagine, Elliot, I am not in the mood for this."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "Sam, you know as well as I do that this is for your own protection."

"_Protection?_ How much protection does a _big freaking limousine_ offer? If I wanted to be any _more_ conspicuous, I'd have to ride in on an _elephant_."

"Sam, do you want our work of the past three years to go to waste? These people are insanely vigilant. They have eyes everywhere. You'd be a sitting duck if you came out alone. Not only that, you have to play the part. Spoiled rich brats, _especially_ spoiled rich brats that want to maintain the status quo, _like_ limos. If you came out to this godforsaken town by yourself, they might get suspicious. And if _they_ stop trusting you and your connections, _we_ end up shot dead in some alley in Chicago like your parents did three years ago. And _that_, Sam," Elliot admonished, "brings me back to my original question. _**Why** are we here_?"

Sam, abashed by the unusually stern lecture, admitted, "It's something personal. A close friend's sister passed away a while ago, and there's a memorial tomorrow."

"Good," Elliot muttered. "That's not too suspicious, and it's checkable with your history." Sam didn't respond to that, just scowled darkly. They drove on a little farther in silence. "Geez, this place has gone downhill since I was here," he remarked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Elliot, you haven't been here in ten years; you don't know the half of it," Sam pointed out, cheering up a little at the memories. "I remember you freaked out because you thought the government was after you. Broke my parents' hearts, too. They wanted you for a son-in-law."

The two of them shared a wistful laugh. "Ah, yeah, I remember," Elliot sighed. "I had some competition in that department, I think." In response to Sam's quizzical look, he clarified, "You know, your friend?"

"_Tucker?_ You hated him, but he definitely wasn't in the 'competition' range," Sam chuckled.

"No, the other one—short, skinny, black hair...the one you liked. Who was he—Darren? David?"

"Danny," Sam said softly, suddenly quiet. "His name was Danny."

An awkward silence built up after that. "North Elmerton, right?" Elliot ventured.

"Yeah," Sam said quietly. "126 Travis Street." Elliot pulled up to the address in question.

"Look, Sam," he said before she got out (she hated having her door opened for her), "I'm sorry for bringing him up."

She ran a hand through her hair and smiled tightly at him. "No, it's not your fault. I just wish..." She trailed off. "Wherever he is...

"I hope someone smacks him for me."

XxXxX

Danny was walking up Wright Avenue near the Elmerton-Amity line, minding his own business, when a blond-and-gray streak slammed into his midsection, knocking him to the ground. He sat up, swearing mentally and clutching his shoulder. "What the...?" he wondered, and came face-to-face with the kid from last night in the park.

The kid jumped up, and immediately began gathering up things he had dropped and cramming them into an already-overstuffed duffel. Among these items were: a PDA, a cell phone, a flashlight, two protein-loaded energy bars, a wad of fifty-dollar bills, two credit cards, and a small ecto-ray gun. He was wearing a large and oddly bulgy gray hoodie, as if he was wearing as much clothing as possible underneath. "Sorry, sorry," the kid hurriedly repeated. Danny held up a hand.

"Kid," he asked, "how old are you?"

"Eigh-eighteen," the teen stammered warily, a defiant glint in his eye.

"Really?" Danny's mouth twitched. "Because your license says you'll be eighteen in April." He held up the kid's license, which he had dropped in the collision. "Robert Gayle, right?"

Rob snatched his license back, flushing. "What's it to you?" he challenged.

Danny shrugged. "Nothing, I guess." He looked Rob over. "You're wearing a lot of layers for this time of year. Aren't you hot?"

"No!" Rod said, maybe a little too quickly. "I, uh, get cold easily," he added lamely.

"Going anywhere?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"_No!_"

"Oh, then I guess you won't be needing this roadmap of Virginia," Danny amended, holding up yet another dropped item. When Rob snatched the map and made a big show of shoving it into his duffel bag, Danny added, "I'm not stupid, you know. I know you're running away."

"I ask you again, _what's it to you?_" Rob demanded angrily.

Danny shrugged, winced slightly, but continued to stare at him. Rob flushed, but stared right back. Finally, Danny sighed, pointed to an unused bus terminal a few yards away, and said, "Let's talk."

He and Rob sat down, Rob still glancing at him nervously every few seconds. "Rob, I'm going to tell you a story," Danny said. "It's about a kid, maybe about your age several years ago, who ran away from a town a lot like this one. You see, this kid thought that by going out into the world, he'd be able to take charge of his own future, his 'destiny' if you will. He thought he could keep the people he loved from getting hurt if he were the only person he had to worry about. But, bit by bit, the kid grew up out there on his own, and he came to realize that running away from his past only kept his own future out of reach.

"Eventually, that kid went back to his hometown to start his life all over again from scratch, but it looks like it'll be a hell of a job. You look like a good kid, Rob," Danny concluded. "I'd hate to see you throw your life away."

Rob seemed to consider that, but then a steely glint entered his eye. "Good story, but I've got another one, probably about the same kid. You see, the kid who ran away from his hometown wasn't around for the Ecto-Techno Revolution. That's what they called it when a couple of crackpot paranormal scientists stumble on an alternative energy source: spectral emission. They invented all sorts of cars and generators and engines that run on natural life energy given off by ghosts. Totally clean, waste-free, and the atmospheric by-products helped the ozone layer. This kid must be thinking win-win, right?

"Well, this kid also must not have heard about Amity Park switching over completely to spectral energy sources about five years ago. Because, see, after about six months of that, the ghosts started getting more and more numerous. Random holes in the Ghost Zone layer would pop open at any time, just dispensing floods of spirits into the immediate area. Complete and utter chaos. Anyone who could leave did. City borders started shrinking away from Amity and Elmerton.

"Of course, there's the complication of all spectral emission-powered devices dying about 5 miles away from the city borders. Cars stop, airplanes crash, the whole spiel. Pretty soon, Amity and Elmerton became the only two cities in a twenty-mile radius—what we call the 'dead zone.' Nobody wants to be too close, not with ghosts coming out of here all the time, terrorizing the general populace. That's not good for business. Can't leave by car, plane, or train... pretty soon, the whole place starts feeling less and less like a city and more and more like a prison. Sure, there are schools and jobs. We can deal on our own. But if you want something more than that..._where do you go? _

"I can't spend one more year of my life in this hell. I gotta get out, like that kid, and take charge of _my_ destiny, because..." Rob gestured expansively, taking in the two cities. "Because there's no future here."

Rob put his hands down, sighed, and picked up his duffel. "I'm hiking to Dublith and taking a train from there to Richmond. Wish me luck." He walked south down Wright Avenue, towards the city lines many, many blocks away. Danny watched him go.

He looked down the street, after Rob, then up towards where he needed to turn to go to Tucker's place. He looked back and forth, back and forth, sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, and continued up the street, muttering, "_I'm_ the adult. _I'm_ the one teaching the lesson..."

XxXxX

_Knock-knock_. Danny rapped on their apartment door twice more, until Tucker answered it. "**_Whaaat?_**" he asked, half joking. "We can hear, you know."

Danny grinned. "I know. It's just nice to knock without worrying about getting shot."

Tucker laughed. "Ask Valerie about the missile incident sometime. Come on in." As they walked in, Tucker added, "Killer timing, by the way. Another 'honored guest' arrived just a few minutes ago."

"Really? Who?"

"Now why would I spoil the surprise?" Tucker smirked. They walked into the dining room, and Danny stopped dead (if you'll pardon the expression). The first person he saw he didn't recognize—tall, white-black hair. The second, however, he knew very well.

Amethyst eyes widened in absolute shock as she jerked up straight in her seat. "**_Danny?_**"

"_**SAM?"**_

A/N: Hah! Haha! I laugh at you! Nightmare sequences are so much fun... I love this chapter. REVIEW!


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